


Camera Obscura

by Guede



Series: Experiments in Light and Dark [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, BAMF Stiles, Bloodplay, Bondage, Dom/sub Undertones, Dubious Consent, Dubious Morality, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Multi, Polyamory, Torture, discussion of slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-19
Updated: 2015-08-19
Packaged: 2018-04-15 14:50:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 55,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4610823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guede/pseuds/Guede
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Deliberate Sabotage is Stiles’ middle name.  Or, Stiles wins Derek and Peter in a poker game and ends up ruining his life in the process.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Camera Obscura

**Author's Note:**

> I got into Teen Wolf via fanfic, then actually watched the show. I made it through season 1, wrote this story, watched season 2, and edited. I have not watched season three (although bless the TW wiki, so useful).

She didn’t mean to do it. Not really. What she meant to do was, make it stop hurting. Make it better. Everything was so confusing, such a rush of thoughts upon thoughts, like boulders tumbling in torrents, and it was so hard to just. Understand. And she heard him say, she thought. That he could, would make it. Just. Stop. And it wasn’t much he asked for. Just bring him along, and then close her eyes, and it would all go away.

She brought both of them. She didn’t remember there being two, but the one wouldn’t go without the other and she needed one of them to come, so he would make it stop, and she couldn’t. Think which one. It hurt. They were crying, and her head was spinning in the gusts of their wails, and she needed one but she couldn’t remember. Which one. So she brought both.

He didn’t mind. He smiled at her, and took their hands from her hands, and then he closed her eyes with fingertips like falling petals and it was all so quiet. They were gone, and she went away, smiling, because it was so soft and silent.

* * *

“Stilinski. Too rich for your blood, or what?” Gent numero dos tapped a cigarette impatiently against the edge of the discard pile. His partner, who’d bowed out three hands back, glowered at the scattered ashes like it was his nails they were going to grime up.

Like it really mattered, with the dark crusts already jammed under them, but Stiles shrugged and smiled his best smarmy kid-in-too-deep smile, and flipped over his last card. “Nah, man, you know those vamps down on Sunset aren’t my bag. I’m a growing boy, need all the RBC count I can get, right?”

Dos grunted and stared at the cards. Numero uno was a little more expressive, going so far as to cackle and slap a thigh. “Well, fuck, man. I had you pegged for jacks or queens high.”

“Yeah. Yeah, no shit,” Dos muttered. His hand shifted on the table, then shifted back, away from the gun holstered under his arm. He shot a filthy look at Stiles but settled down as the dealer swept up the cards for the next hand. “Shit. You gonna clean out the place, kid?”

“Gotta pay those college loans somehow,” Stiles chirped, jiggling his leg. He took a sip of the soda at his elbow, then eeped and grabbed at the glass, _just_ saving it from overbalancing.

A little Coke sloshed out anyway, dripping onto the felt table, and over in the corner the third of this merry band of hunters clucked disapprovingly. He was the eldest of them, lanky and weathered and topped off with a black cowboy hat, looking like a dummy from a history museum. “Dunno as you can pay off the feds with what’s in back, Stilinski,” he said, sharpening his knife for the umpteenth time. Of course Stiles let a shiver get out anyway, just to see the bloodthirsty bastards smug it up, but seriously, any more and that knife was going to be a toothpick. “Though I guess as you can always go into a chop shop and see what you can get for the parts.”

“Frank, Frank, Frank, my man, my brother. I would never be so crude. Parts are for idiots who don’t know a thing about sustainable resources,” Stiles said, laughing. In his back jeans pocket his phone buzzed. He made a show of sliding it out, checking the text, and then making a sad face at the room. “Well, damn, guys. Seems I’m in danger of violating my curfew. Now, I’ve been loving this night, truly, loving it, you boys are the best—”

“Early morning flight here.” Frank shrugged. “I’m for going up. Ed, you gonna try to dance around your ass-kickin’ a little longer, or you going all-in on this one?”

Politely attentive, the dealer paused with cards mid-splayed between his hands. Ed studied the miniscule stand of chips he still had, then the respectable mountain in front of Stiles. Then he grunted. “Fuck. Fuckin’ boss…think you’d get an overnight, at least, for wrapping up at ass o’clock, but no, gotta head back right away. All right, fine, not like it’s going to make a fucking difference between nada and lint in my pocket.”

“Aw, Ed, have a little faith. You might yet pull that Hail Mary,” Stiles said.

The dealer snapped the cards together, then cocked his head as Stiles and Ed both rose from the table. “We’re a little rough around the edges, but we play a clean game,” numero uno, Wyatt, tutted. “You get a chance to check the merch before you commit.”

“Perfect gentlemen,” Stiles agreed. He wiped his hand off on his jeans; the spilled soda was already going sticky in the stuffy, slightly overheated room.

The ventilation must have been truly a mess, since the next room over wasn’t much better than a freezer, and there wasn’t much between the two besides some drywall. How the dealer wasn’t freaking out over the constant low-grade growling, Stiles didn’t know.

“He’s good,” Ed said, letting Stiles know he’d been running his mouth before his brain again. “And even if he wasn’t, he stood too close to a mortar close to three years ago, hasn’t heard much more than a blaring trumpet since.”

Stiles winced with most of his upper body. “Ouch. What’d you need the mortar for? Kelpie?”

“Sand lion,” Ed grunted. He paused for a second to pull on some heavy-duty work gloves and to take out a taser. “Didn’t have a reliable source of sacred lotus at the time.”

“Aw, buddy, I knew you liked me for something.” Stiles put a hand to his chest and pretended to swoon, and thereby conveniently missed Ed’s half-hearted attempt to wave him back, like anyone here really cared too much about anyone else’s bodily integrity.

A fresh growl echoed through the room, pointed and rising in volume. Ed stiffened, then set his jaw and shoulders and marched over to the far side, where a tarp-covered lump awaited. He stopped almost out of arm’s reach, then stretched out and whisked the canvas from the two cages.

They weren’t very big. The cages, that was. The men inside had their knees crammed up to their chests and their hair brushing the top bars, and they both looked to be pretty good-sized. More weight still on them than Stiles would’ve expected, given their most recent hosts.

“Well, you want a good fight.” Now that the cat was out of the bag, Ed was waxing expansive, thumb hooked through his belt-loop, chin jutting up. “I know some just want to get to the kill, but what’s the fucking point in that? You go through all the trouble, you might as well have a good brawl from it, and you can’t expect that on water and bread.”

“Yeah, not really what they mean by carb-loading,” Stiles said, mostly absentminded. He took a couple steps closer, then got down on one knee and let his far arm drop behind, shielding it from Ed. A snap of the fingers and the other room suddenly lit up with cursing.

Ed jerked around and took a step towards the door. “Frank?” he called.

Stiles watched the two werewolves. The one on the right, the older one, had zeroed in on the finger-snap, which was totally visible to them. The one of the left had been too busy snarling through his muzzle, but he picked up on something because he glanced at his companion, then at Stiles. Maybe not too long in the pits, actually. The clothes on the older one were ragged as hell, but still recognizable as suit trousers and a dress shirt, and some suit jacket left around the arms; the shirt at least was designer. The younger one just had jeans and a bloody, torn muscle shirt.

Both of them had a lot of visible injuries, in various stages of healing. Younger one had some ugly clotted cuts on the side of his face, but he was moving around a lot even with the cage and the (presumably) wolfsbane-laced rope. Older one was prettier in the face—at least around the muzzle, which was thick and leather and covered from the nose down under the chin—but he winced slightly as he craned to look back at Stiles, favoring one leg.

“Yeah, a little beat up, but they’re good for your needs.” Ed, satisfied with whatever his buddies had yelled back, turned back to the cages. Then he raised the taser and pulled the trigger.

The prongs hit the bars, then fell off to set up a flurry of sparks against the concrete. Both werewolves reared up as much as they could, banging around and snarling and just generally flashing blue eyes.

“Betas,” Ed added. Unnecessarily. Then he grinned and patted the taser. “You okay there, kid?”

Stiles had flailed and windmilled and just generally made himself look like a scared idiot about the whole stupid pissing contest. He stumbled up onto his feet and back, then put a hand nervously to the back of his neck. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, I’m good. Good as gold, good as good can be. So anyway, looks good, looks great, we’d better wrap it up, yeah?”

“Sure, Stilinski,” Ed said, sauntering back. “Hell, bitches got you this rattled, maybe I’ll stand a chance.”

Hah.

* * *

Stiles isn’t really sure where they are the first couple years. They get shipped around in a daze, shock and tears and drugs, and more likely than not some dicking around of the psi-power persuasion. And hell, he and Scott aren’t that old. Well. Old enough to know that screaming for your parents isn’t any kind of promise. Not old enough to not do it anyway, just in case, just in hope. Just because it hurts too much to let it go.

Light duties, to start out with. It’s not as bad as all the special reports on TV think it could be. If you’re using a kid as a scrying tool, you want to keep them virginal and in reasonably good health. It’s still being fucking _sold into slavery_ , of course.

They get used to it. Depressing, but true.

And then their _master_ fucks up or something, didn’t pay enough fucking attention to the clairvoyant messages he went through all that trouble to get Stiles and Scott to deliver, and ups and doesn’t come home. They get distributed with the rest of the estate—complete fucking kicker, that there’s a whole lawyering underground for that—and end up with an unscrupulous witch who lives way out in a desert wasteland and who wants some cheap, expendable (if the spell goes wrong) help. She’s not quite as…conscientious…about taking care of her property, but you have to know at least a little bit to gather herbs and that sort of shit, and to make potions and draw casting circles. Scott’s kind of shit at it, but Stiles takes to it like a duck to water; Scott makes up for it by turning himself into a little underage indentured Martha Stewart, cleaning and cooking and keeping Stiles out of trouble.

The witch appreciates it enough to let them watch TV, read newspapers, even sometimes dig into the random leftover books and magazines and (sometimes, if the stars and sun and moon align) the occasional comic book that her clients constantly leave behind. It’s a long-ass trip out and no one does it as an overnight.

No one’s willing to free two half-grown boys either. Stiles gets caught and _Scott_ gets beaten so badly his chest swells up to nearly twice its size and he spends weeks blue-faced and wheezing, dragging himself through his chores. Scott’s good about it. He’s the one who keeps up hope that someone’s looking for them, actually—fair enough, his mom didn’t even know he was going over to Stiles’ house that day, so there’s a chance.

Stiles tries very hard not to think about his dad. Because his mom had said—but he always had an eavesdropping ear and a rat-trap memory and now he’s old enough to look up the words the doctors had thrown around, so he knows she wasn’t well. But it’s just, well, easier. Not to think about it.

Of all things, the witch goes bankrupt. Something about alicorn horns and clients wiped out in a faraway war. She sells them and they pass through some skeevy fucking warehouses. Get an eyeful. Get drop-kicked straight past sexual awakening and right into the arms of a brood of vampires who need thralls to do their daytime chores for them.

The thrall isn’t all sexy brain-washing like pop culture makes out. It’s all about intent, like a lot of goddamn things after dark. At this point all Stiles and Scott have are each other, Scott’s insistence that his mom misses him, and Stiles’ complete inability to keep a civil tongue in his head. It’s not much, but it keeps them tied down when maybe they’d otherwise take the out, loosen up and just let the vamps turn them into drooling zombies.

The head vamp is kind of amused about the whole thing, after she gets through the usual psychological torture (which pop culture does get right). She’s been around a couple centuries and tends to prioritize novelty, and resistance is novel, until Stiles has the bright idea to prove how much more semi-willing servants can get done than zombies. Zombies can’t negotiate a lower cable bill. Zombies can’t learn computers and hack police records to check if anyone’s onto them. And zombies sure as hell can’t figure out more efficient ways to launder the money from your S&M club slash blood farm.

Yeah, so. The sex. Scott’s stubborn enough to track their birthdays, even if all they get to do about them is quietly press their heads together at night. It hasn’t come up till now—don’t sully the merch, don’t ruin the tools—and it doesn’t come up till they’re old enough to get driver’s licenses. Comes up precisely _because_ of the driver’s licenses. Kid vamps are legendary disasters, nobody does it, even vamps have flavors of psycho they don’t want, so Stiles and Scott get threatened and bad-touched and looked at (and they look, they look even when they don’t want to, because knowledge is better) but never the full done deal till they’re mobile and potentially able to escape.

They don’t. Scott’s rib-cage, black and blue, and his asthma making it rattle like an empty husk. Stiles isn’t going to risk it again till he _knows_ , for sure, that he can get them home free. He’s close. He’s learned a lot, even made some connections on the side.

Of course, that’s when werewolves.

* * *

Ed and Frank and Stiles were back in the room with the cages about ten minutes later, Ed still shaking his head at his luck. And it was purely the luck of the draw. Stiles was a _damn_ good Texas No-Limit Hold’em player and it was a point of pride to play clean. Frank was up by one cage with taser at the ready, while Ed was fiddling with his pistol and looking dubiously at the two extra-large black duffel bags Stiles had just thrown down.

“Stilinski, no offense, but they got claws,” Ed finally said.

Stiles tried very hard not to roll his eyes, and completely failed. To make up for it, he pulled out the syringe case with an extra-grand flourish. “And that, ladies and gents, is why we have _drugs_.”

“You got enough?” Frank asked, all skeptical with the brows. “How long is your drive back?”

“If it’s not enough, I got a shotgun up front, _Dad_.” Stiles popped the case and drew the first shot himself, to keep them from offering.

Not that they wouldn’t have good shit. Hell, it was probably _Stiles’_ own shit they were packing, considering his market share in the region, but there were other reasons for doing it himself. 

“Well, can’t say you don’t know.” Frank shrugged and shot his taser into the one on the left.

Nearly in the same motion, he unlocked the front of the cage and flung it open so the werewolf inside thrashed himself out the door. The legs almost caught Stiles in the shin, but he sidestepped and then did an ungainly hop to put him astride the prone chest. He got his knee down and then caught the hair as the werewolf’s head knocked back against the ground, letting the spasms stretch the throat for him.

He could feel the man stiffen. One wild blue eye rolled back to stare up at him as Stiles angled the needle into the neck artery. Quick depress, swipe over the puncture site with the ball of the thumb. Maybe drag it down a little farther than necessary. The werewolf’s iris contracted till it was the thinnest line possible.

Another kick, less forceful. The snarling stuttered and slowed out into sluggish grunts, and when Stiles finally let go of his grip on the man’s hair, the man slumped fully down. Stiles got up, dusted off his hands, and grinned at Ed and Frank; Frank gave him a thin smile back while Ed just rolled his eyes and holstered his gun.

Ed gave Stiles a hand in tucking the werewolf into the duffel, laying him on his side and then pulling up his legs while Stiles supported the neck and head. The werewolf’s hands were closing and unclosing where they were bound behind him and Stiles eyed them for a second before finally pulling the duffel’s sides together and zippering up. Then they turned to the other werewolf.

He’d gone completely silent, just staring coldly at them over the muzzle. When Frank stepped up with the taser, the werewolf let out a muffled snort and then levered himself against the cage. Frank started and the werewolf stilled. Cocked his head, snorted again, all drama, and then shuffled as much as he could—twisting so he was sort of sideways to the door. Didn’t want his nose broken, probably.

Still got tasered. But Stiles appreciated the effort, and stepped round so he was behind the werewolf. He caught one arm as the man fell out of the cage, then rode the jerking up till he was gripping the underside of the throat, the back of his hand pushing up the chin. Same deal with the syringe, and this one leaned into the drugs, damn near draping himself back over Stiles. His head rubbed against Stiles’ shoulder and he looked straight up at Stiles as his eyes blew wide and soft.

Into the duffel he went. The duffels got carried back through the place and put into the back of the SUV Stiles had rented, and then Stiles and the hunters said their farewells.

It was just closing in on sunrise when Stiles pulled out onto the road, the magic hour in between shifts, after the last of the clubbers crawled home and before the first of the brown-nosers headed out for work. He had the roads all to himself, a full load, and—

“Ah, shit.” Stiles clumsily corrected the car. “Sorry, sorry. It’s a rental, my usual’s not this slick with the brakes.”

The back of the SUV went quiet.

“Yeah, so. Not Santa Claus, guys.” GPS said Stiles had an hour drive ahead of him. A yawn caught him as he was grimacing, and he grimaced again and then dug some Red Bull out of the glove compartment. “There actually isn’t a shotgun up here, but that’s because I sure as hell don’t need one. Besides, it’d be a real shame to mess shit up before I see what you look like. So how about we agree to table things till I get—”

A high, jagged whine rose up somewhere behind the SUV, a bit like somebody dragging their nails across the world’s largest chalkboard. Then there was a man’s scream, abruptly and wetly cut off. And probably more to werewolf ears.

Stiles checked his watch, then swigged more Red Bull. “Jesus Christ, she’s prompt. Gotta remember to keep her in my contacts list, super-hard to get reliable help these days. Anyway, take a nap. It’s a few hours.”

One of the bags let out a disgruntled snuffle. Probably the younger one.

“Or I could put on the radio,” Stiles said brightly. “I’ve been going for death metal lately. You?”

Not a peep. Good.

* * *

At least it’d been an alpha. Scott still disagrees sometimes, but fuck him, and Stiles means that in the nicest possible way. If Scott had gone and _died_ on him—

Well. Scott doesn’t die. Scott survives, and is a werewolf, and that fucking alpha never shows his face at the club again. Not because they blacklisted him or anything: the bastard apparently paid some fine for accidentally mauling the poor kid just trying to get him to take his bad-etiquette domming into one of the private rooms, so the vamps are all good and dandy. The alpha could’ve come back whenever, except for the fact that there isn’t a club anymore.

The thing is, vamps will take money from weres. They’ll friend them on Facebook, fuck them, even invite them to Sunday Mass. They just won’t live with a were. Something about incompatible lusts whatever the fuck. Anyway. They want to kill Scott. They’re going to kill Scott. They get pretty close. Newly-bitten were versus a master vamp of decent age plus stable brood, yeah. Also, Scott goes and chooses to shove Stiles out of the way when one vamp tries to brain Stiles to get him away from Scott, and ends up taking a wolfsbane-laced dagger to the side.

Scott’s not quite dead when the vamps toss him and Stiles into the abattoir for clean-up later. Cutting their losses on both. They lock the door and it’s Stiles and Scott and a whole lot of blood on the tile. And Stiles knows tons and tons now, way more than he should, way more than any kid should, but he doesn’t know how to get out of this. He doesn’t know how to get Scott to stop bleeding, he doesn’t know how to get the door open, he doesn’t know how to just make it _stop_. He’s got blood all over his shaking hands and Scott is going cold under them.

But the thing is, at the end of the day, in this world, it doesn’t necessarily boil down to power. That is, going after power kind of puts the cart before the horse.

A lot of people will tell you it’s belief, that if your belief is strong, young padawan, then that’s all you need. That’s not quite it. It’s close, but close only counts in some fucking country club game nobody cares about anymore. 

What you need is will. Belief is what you think will happen; will is what _will_ fucking happen. Will is raw and harsh and nasty, will is suffering and pain. Will is bone-deep fucking simple, and that’s why almost nobody gets it. It’s too hard to look at. Well, Stiles has nothing else, right there in that meat locker. Just him and Scott and the blood.

So Stiles gets into blood magic. Spur of the moment, all that, but it just takes one hit, right? 

Scott’s bedridden for a week. He’s the one who’s always reasoned with Stiles, who’s reined him in, who’s tried to keep their eyes on the home they barely remember rather than the terrible fucking situations they’re always in. But he’s a little busy putting his spleen back together.

When Stiles comes back, ashes in his hair, lighter fluid on his shoes, and so many deaths swelling him up, Scott almost can’t look at him and Stiles knows exactly why.

Stiles opens his mouth and Scott rolls over, grabs his wrist— _almost_ does matter, _almost_ is the difference between Stiles and a howling fury—and tucks his battered body around him. Doesn’t say a word, just nuzzles his head up against Stiles’ throat. 

“Didn’t want you to leave me,” Scott does finally say, hours later.

“Oh,” Stiles says. “Yeah. No.”

Scott hums. It’s low in his throat, close to a rumble. Maybe a wolf thing, Stiles thinks, and makes that the first of the many, many things he researches for Scott over the years. “I could feel you slipping. You can’t, Stiles. You can’t. You and me, remember?”

And Stiles doesn’t just remember. He _feels_ it too, feels it thrumming between them, this great big bright thing, like the sun, hurts even to look at it sideways, and yeah. _Oh_. Blood. _Scott’s_ blood, Stiles’ hands. And now always it’ll be like that. They were brothers in all but blood before, and now there’s no _but_.

* * *

An hour later Stiles finished maneuvering the SUV around a half-buried rock and put it into park. He wasn’t actually that much closer to his real intended layover point than when he’d started, but needs must. Pity the view wasn’t scenic at _all_ , just mile after mile of dead yellow hills. The sun was up but there was a drought-defying fog over the sky, filtering the light to corpse-gray, and clinging like a wet clump of tissue to the skin. Stiles ran his hand over the top of his head, made a face at the film of moisture that came off, and checked his phone.

One of the duffels jerked, skittering down about a foot towards the back door. The other one bit out a snarl, sharp for all that it was coming through heavy canvas and leather.

“Chill, dudes,” Stiles muttered. He flicked through a couple of texts from Scott, paid a little more attention to Lydia’s one. Rolled his eyes at Erica’s blizzard. Oh, hey, Deucalion had called him. Guess the shithead hadn’t won that argument about the bones, after all. No voicemail, thank God. Stiles—well, he never really wanted to talk to the guy, but he really, really was totally happy to let Lydia run interference on that one right now. “Back there in a sec. You’ve been MIA for a month, think a couple minutes are going to matter much?”

The jerky duffel seesawed across the SUV floor. Canvas ripped somewhere, though when Stiles looked back, the zipper was holding up just fine. Stiles sighed and put his phone away, and got out of the car.

He walked around to the back and popped it open, then gave the jerky duffel a good shove out of the way so he could get at his personal bag: med kit, trowel, jute rope, candles. Then the cooler strapped to one side of the SUV: two bottles of water, one of an herbal infusion. Everything went on the ground next to the car. Then Stiles straightened up. He eyed the shifting bags, then shook his head and pushed up his sleeves.

Younger guy jammed his head through before the zipper was all the way past it, all crazed eyes and swelling neck muscles, like some kind of demented Alien-frog cross. He got his shoulders through too, throwing himself back from Stiles, and then paused.

“Uh, yeah. Please to be cooperating, yes?” Stiles said, tightening his grip on the other were’s neck. _He’d_ come out quietly, just doing that intense stare thing. Also the lean-into-you thing, and the blatant sniffing-thigh thing, at least up till the claws had forced him face-down to the floor. One point right over the carotid settled him. “I got a schedule, and right now we’ve got time for water and a piss break, and if you’re really, _really_ good, an energy bar.”

Both of them were pretty confused. Stiles didn’t _smell_ like were, just magic, but also wrong. Erica had tried to explain it to him once, but hadn’t managed to get much past electricity and that he just wasn’t “possible,” something about a mismatch between the smell and some pseudo mage-sense weres apparently had. If they were on light conversation terms, maybe Deucalion would be able to phrase it better; he’d been a scholar way back when. But yeah.

The younger guy eyed the very were-like claws Stiles had digging into the older one’s neck, then flicked his gaze to the older one’s face. Whatever he saw there made him tighten, shoulders hunching defensively. He slouched against the side of the SUV, eyes going back to Stiles’ claws. Blinked hard when they disappeared. Stiles’ transformations didn’t happen like a were’s either.

Stiles unbuckled the muzzle on the older guy and let it drop to the floor. Then he sat back on his haunches and gave the guy a moment to work the cramps out of his jaw. There were a lot, judging from how he kept opening and closing his mouth, the occasional fang flashing, muscles shifting between forms. He had a half-healed cut scabbed along the left side of his jaw and arcing under to the soft part of the throat, which didn’t really do much to detract from the nice view.

When Stiles pivoted, keeping one hand casually on the older were’s shoulder, the younger one was already peeled away from the wall. He still looked like he wanted to punch Stiles in the face with his shoulders, but his knees thumped down and then, every inch clearly begrudged, he bent his head so Stiles could get at the muzzle. Once that was out, his M.O. was a joint-cracking yawn, fangs fully extending and then popping back in, finished with a sideways jerk of his head. Yeah, yeah, crack that spine, baby.

Oops, that one came out. Stiles shrugged and smiled at the beetled brows he was getting. “Dude. You can’t blame me, you’re the one with the hot like burning family.”

Okay, wrong word. Younger one actually had the more conservative reaction, going stiff and crouched with his lips curled off his teeth. Older one bucked off the floor, face and neck muscles convulsing as he tried to force more of a change than the drugs and wolfsbane rope were letting him. Stiles _just_ missed losing a couple finger joints before he got a fistful of hair and slammed the man back to the floor. Hit something, judging by how both weres winced. The younger one flinched forward like he’d forgotten his hands were tied, then snarled when he caught Stiles looking at him.

“Sorry,” Stiles said. He watched them relax out of sheer surprise. “Well, yeah, first meeting and all, that’s kind of unfair of me. Tongue slip, I swear. So you Peter and Derek, or T—ah, okay, right the first time.”

Derek was consciously willing down the shift, his eyes dropping involuntarily with the effort. Stiles didn’t even bother looking at Peter. The man wasn’t struggling anymore, so he figured it was safe to go get some of the supplies.

Didn’t turn his back on them. Sidled sideways like a crab, and nearly spilled himself ass over head when the side of his foot hit the door latch. Fucking all-nighters, seriously.

Stiles grabbed one of the water bottles and twisted off the cap. He had a swig himself and then held it up towards the others. Peter had levered himself up to sitting by then, listing heavily towards Derek. For a second it looked like he was going to fall on the other werewolf, and then he righted himself and shuffled forward. Behind him, Derek bit his lip and pulled up those nice Greek statue shoulders, and completely failed at looking like he wasn’t fucking relieved for the near-scenting.

And Peter was smiling at Stiles, pleasant with an undercurrent of _pleased_ , like pleased to service you, sir, how _can_ I help, and then a whole mess of shit about Derek’s reaction there, for all that he’d been poking for it. He really did have some kind of limp, but he was playing it up, letting the remnants of his clothes strain and tug over what was admittedly a very attractive body. “Thank you, Stiles,” he said, and then cocked his head. Licked his lips and let them hang open, his eyes half-closed. 

Yeah. Okay. Right. Stiles pushed the water bottle up against Peter’s mouth and those lips wrapped around the rim real tight, Peter’s eyes opening back up as the water began to flow into his mouth. What was left of his shirt was hanging open nearly to his stomach and when he swallowed, everything from his throat down to the breastbone flexed. O _kay_ then.

And then he spat out the water bottle and went for Stiles’ wrist, and for fuck’s sake. Derek tried something from the side and Stiles didn’t even turn towards it, just shoved out a pulse of air and pinned the fucker up against the SUV. He needed his hands to choke Peter till the asshole stopped snapping at him.

“Okay, what did I say?” Stiles panted. He gave the man under him a look, then sighed and let Peter up just enough so that he could crack the man’s head against the floor again. Then he finished getting his leg over Peter’s chest and threw all his weight down and forward, giving up one hand’s grip so that he could press his forearm across Peter’s throat. “Jesus, do you people not have any fucking manners?”

“Excuse me,” Peter snapped out, in between gasps. “Terribly—sorry—loss of autonomy—brings out—my socio—”

Stiles rolled his eyes and brought out the claws again. When they brushed over Peter’s spine, he shut up. Stiles grinned and dug in a little, pressing forward with his forearm when Peter instinctively arched up, trying to avoid the points. He blew Peter’s enraged face a kiss, then snaked his head over and down.

Peter froze, the only movement his wheezing breath over Stiles’ shoulder, and even that stopped when Stiles let his chin drop like he was going for the throat. Stiles pulled up last-minute to put his mouth right up to Peter’s ear instead, and Peter gave him a nice whole-body shiver. Which Peter objected to, going by the growl that was vibrating against Stiles’ forearm. “Yeah, hey, I don’t know who raised you but I think you’re supposed to _ask_ first,” Stiles said. He flexed his claws against Peter’s neck and let one scrape over a spinal knob hard enough to draw blood; Peter’s inhale was so fucking _sharp_ and pretty, Stiles almost wanted to lose his train of thought. “Listen, asshole, I can and will rip your throat out. It’s just I heard you have a hard-on for the Argents, and since I’m pretty up on Gerard myself, I thought we might talk first.”

It was real quiet. Like, dead of night, ghosts approaching, run like hell quiet. Nothing was around for miles, and the weres weren’t giving him anything. Peter was too good for that, the pulse under Stiles’ hands steady—maybe another werewolf could’ve picked up a hitch, but Stiles hated drawing off Scott at this much of a distance—and while Derek wasn’t, he was too damn chaotic to get a read on. Also, Stiles was tired, and fuck, damn and shit, he had to be running late at this point. Fucking last-minute orders and fucking Lydia’s fucking Louboutin addiction. Seriously, some day Stiles was going to make Jackson do all the feeding of that beast.

Stiles pushed himself up, careful to keep his claws fitted to the joints of Peter’s vertebrae. Peter had a blank face on, even going so far as to blink at a regular, relaxed pace.

“What gave you that idea,” Derek said, all monotone of death. He grunted when Stiles let him drop to the floor, but otherwise didn’t protest. Sounded a little raspy, maybe Stiles had gone too hard on the windpipe. “The fact that you _bought_ us off the Argents?”

“Derek,” Peter said quietly. He tilted his head—for a better view of Stiles’ claws going away, and then his eyes snapped past Stiles’ hand to Stiles’ face. He was genuinely interested now, not just the lounge lizard bullshit he’d be pulling before. “Are you collecting all of us?”

“First, let’s be clear that I won you, didn’t have to spend a dime. Second…” Contrary to popular belief, Stiles didn’t really give a shit about manners. He also didn’t usually bother with tact or compassion, but sometimes Scott bled through in weird ways. “So. Look. I knew there was a pair of you left, but I wasn’t sure which pair. Everyone else I looked up—”

“Right,” Peter said. His tone was clipped and cold and for a moment Stiles was inappropriately grateful for it sparing him the awkward.

Derek made some sort of bitten-off noise, too low and garbled for Stiles to make out. Not so for Peter; his eyes made an aborted flick towards Derek which was half-irritation, half…something angrier. Resentment?

“Thing is, we kind of bought your old house,” Stiles added. He eased off Peter and sat up. Even checked his phone, while Derek and Peter had their moment. “By the way, man, there was some strange shit in the basement. Well. What we’re calling the basement. It’s a goddamn fucking labyrinth, really. I don’t know if any of you sifted through after the fire, but—”

“No,” Derek gritted out. When Stiles peeped over his phone, Peter was glaring holes in Derek’s face and Derek, for once, was ignoring him. “No. We—there wasn’t time. And nobody’s been back.”

Yeah, well, Stiles had figured on the second part, what with the Hatfields and McCoys thing they’d been running with the Argents for the last four years. But they’d stayed in town for a couple weeks right afterward; the hospital records had said Peter had been put into an induced coma, and Talia had needed skin grafts. It said something that werewolf healing was slowed long enough for someone to put on a graft. Derek and Laura had been mobile, and Laura had been active enough, documenting six separate visits to the sheriff’s office.

Stiles gave them a couple more seconds, but neither man seemed inclined to open up any more. So he got off Peter and hopped out of the car. The one water bottle was a lost cause, but old habit—working that vamp club—made him toss the empty bottle back into the SUV. He picked up the second and set it on the floor by Peter’s head, and then put the med kit down by it.

Jute rope, candles, herbal infusion, and a good splash of Stiles’ blood once he’d laid out the pentagram on the ground. He had to weigh it down with the candles and some rocks; a light breeze had started up, not quite enough to get rid of the fog, but enough to be a pain in the ass. The sun slit through the ribbons of fog and clutched talon-like at the glossy jute, making it a searing gold. Stiles squinted through the last few verses, dripped some more blood, and then felt a deep, cold _whoosh_ run down his spine and then out into the ground, spreading like wildfire across the valley. A good, strong working was often better than sex. It just fucking _went_.

The pentagram was still glowing when Stiles stepped out of it. Valley this size, it’d take ten to fifteen minutes for the spell to cover all the ground. Might as well clean up while he was waiting.

Peter and Derek were sitting with their legs hanging over the bumper, watching him like a pair of creepy, overinvested gargoyles. Peter’s arms were still bent behind him but Derek had gotten his around to the front—oh, that was all the groaning and cursing—and had apparently dislocated one shoulder in the process. He tensed as Stiles came up, then doubled up and nearly threw himself off the car when Stiles snapped his shoulder back in without touching him. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Derek was chanting.

“You have any idea what they gave you?” Stiles asked. The med kit and the water bottle were between the two weres. “My shit’s worn off.”

“It’s not entirely chemical,” was what Peter was willing to give.

Stiles eyed him. Peter smiled encouragingly and nodded towards the medkit. “Magic’s gonna have to wait till I get to the ranch,” Stiles said.

Peter sighed. Derek finally unknotted himself and looked up. “How long is—what are you—”

“Hold still.” Stiles yanked up the man’s hands till they were nearly over his head and felt over Derek’s shoulder with his other hand. He let his fingertips brush up Derek’s throat a couple times, curious, but Derek didn’t rise to the bait, aside from a stifled rumble or two.

Wasn’t even that sore anymore, Stiles judged. But the cuts on Derek’s face were still knitting together under the crusted blood. He slid his hand under Derek’s chin and made the other man dip his head forward so Stiles could see the back of his neck. Some bruising that went down under the muscle shirt, kind of close to the spine but it didn’t look terrible. There was more over the ribs and across the left hip, like Derek had gotten body-slammed into something hard—“this isn’t even close to bad touch, you delicate flower, keep squirming and any devirginizing’s going to be totally your fault”—and a lot of layered pounding on the bottoms of Derek’s feet, which was what happened when you ran at werewolf speed with no shift and no shoes.

Nothing on Derek’s right leg but he winced reflexively a few times, probably having gotten shot there recently. Left leg was calling to Stiles with a weak line of heat through the tibia, a healing stress fracture. So the most _most_ recent stuff was healing at regular werewolf speed, and the stuff maybe a week old, that was taking a lot longer.

Stiles handed Derek the water bottle and wasted a couple wads of gauze on trying to clean up the cuts on Derek’s face, while Derek swigged water every time Stiles poked him. “Leave some for your elders,” Stiles muttered.

Derek snorted into his water, then flattened all the emotion from his face, his shoulders pulling down and in. Made it easier to scrape off the clots without taking the healing skin with them. And they were claw-marks, not cuts like Stiles had first thought, with all the gunk in the way. The hell? Hales fought Argents. Humans. They didn’t have time for pissy little werewolf territorial fights anymore, so where did the alpha fit in?

“Beta cage fights are not terribly visual,” Peter offered, apparently reading Stiles’ mind. “Not enough blood and gaping wounds, until the last blow.”

“Beta-omega?” Stiles mused. He snagged the water from Derek, bagged up the bloodied gauze, and then turned to the other werewolf.

Peter’s eyes were darkly amused, and his smile was all teeth. “Not enough of a…storyline, is there? You can only have so many variations on the outsider coming into town to cause trouble.”

“Oh, my God, you make it sound like pro wrestling.” Stiles waved at Peter, and after a moment, the man twisted at the waist to let Stiles get at his back. The rope around Peter’s wrists was knotted tight and slivered a couple of Stiles’ fingertips before he got it loosened enough for Peter to slip out one hand. “Are there stage names? Costumes—oh, shit, is that why the suit? Because dude, hard to believe you’d show up to a throwdown in what, Armani—”

“It’s not a joke,” Derek snapped. He was fidgeting with his bonds, twisting his forearms so a fresh pink film was spreading over the older stains. “What the hell, you think it’s—”

“Inappropriate humor is my calling, and it would be a crime to deny the world my true gift,” Stiles said. He was ready to choke Peter up again, but the man just pulled his arms around front and let Stiles re-tie his wrists. “Besides, you owe me for all the blatant scenting you’ve been doing.”

Derek paused to process that, then rolled his shoulders. “Peter owes you.”

“No loyalty these days,” Peter drawled. Looking at Stiles, but a little too intent to notice he was cocking his head towards Derek. “The dissolution of the family is one of the modern era’s great social tragedies.”

Stiles dropped the water bottle into Peter’s hands, just as Derek winced _hard_ , like Peter had gutted him. Peter smiled in thanks at Stiles, but it was a little tight around the edges, and his focus was down a good twenty, thirty percent. Then his eyes narrowed and Stiles was back up to bat.

“It was a friendly gesture,” Peter said.

Last word kind of muffled, because Stiles wanted a better look at the cut on Peter’s jaw and was levering up the man’s chin. Peter was fighting down his instincts, trying to _not_ care, but stretch a wolf’s throat and they weren’t going to be able to help it. Still, it wasn’t going to help the schedule if Stiles got all worked up over it too, no matter how much he wanted to poke that muscle quivering along the length of Peter’s neck, like it was just going to _snap_.

Alpha claw tip, Stiles figured, and moved on. Some really nasty scarring on Peter’s back, like somebody wanted to take out his kidney, and he’d broken his arm at some point. “You’re the creepiest trafficking victim ever,” Stiles muttered, feeling down Peter’s thighs. He wasn’t exactly a healer, either in skill set or inclination, but blood magic was kind of inherently about ebbs and flows in the body, and so was health generally. “If you want a clue, Stockholm Syndrome isn’t supposed to kick in that quick.”

“I didn’t think it was _unwelcome_.” Peter’s left leg twitched once as Stiles neared the knee, then relaxed as Stiles pulled back. “But clear consent is of course a priority of yours.”

“Okay, point for you.” Stiles abruptly hooked his fingers into either side of Peter’s kneecap and wiggled it. He had to give Peter credit, the man flashed fang and claw but his hands stayed wrapped around the water bottle. “Huh. So did they take out the whole kneecap, or…”

“If not, then the difference was negligible,” Peter said, voice edged and hissing at the end.

“Yeah. Well, those suck, it takes forever for the joint to get recalibrated.” Stiles bundled up the medkit and pushed past Derek to stuff it into his bag. Gotta give the weres a minute to argue it out, rework their brilliant plan over Stiles’ back.

They looked like they were giving each other the cold shoulder when Stiles scooted out of the car. Peter picking at his shredded cuff and idly studying the landscape, Derek humped into the corner and glowering at the ground so Stiles had to really work at it to slide up against him. Derek looked over and his eyes totally stuck on Stiles’ throat for a second. Then he got over it and lifted his lip in a sneer.

Stiles ignored him. The pentagram wasn’t glowing anymore, but Stiles stepped back into the center for a quick check. Looked good, he stepped out and tidied up, digging a shallow hole and then lighting it up with a couple matches.

When he turned back to the SUV, all he could see of Peter were Peter’s shins and feet. Derek was still sitting on the bumper, but he’d twisted around so his back was to the fire, and his head was angled down. He stiffened as Stiles came up but didn’t turn around.

“Up and in, kids,” Stiles said. “You blew the energy bars, but you might still make the hot shower.”

The beginnings of a snarl rumbled out of Derek, but he got interrupted by Peter grabbing his arm. Peter twisted around Derek, dragging them both back and out of the way as the door came down. Then Derek lost his balance and fell onto the other man. He shoved out his arms, swinging himself away from Peter’s knee, but couldn’t help most of the rest of him flopping over Peter’s torso. Peter grunted, saw Stiles through the back windshield, and then turned his head and buried it in Derek’s neck. Derek’s hands had come up off the floor to Peter’s stomach and they flexed convulsively, giving the rope a damn good test. Stiles could see half of Derek’s face, enough to get surprise and bitterness and a good helping of relief. Peter’s head moved, dark on Derek’s shoulder, and Derek hooked his hands over Peter’s hip and lifted his chin, his eyes closing a little. He knew Stiles was looking. They both did.

“Cute,” Stiles allowed, and walked round to the driver’s seat. By then they’d rearranged themselves into something slightly less suggestive—in the sense that it was just jabbing your nose instead of whaling on you with a crowbar, and Stiles was thinking he wouldn’t have to drive the whole fucking hour with an erection. He was, however, going to need another Red Bull.

“Your proposition,” Peter said a couple minutes into the drive, all meditative and slow.

Stiles drummed his fingers along the wheel. “Yeah. So. I have this regular, they want a Saint Christopher special. I don’t really want to _skin_ one of you—it’s a fucking _rental_ , Derek, I will take the deposit out of your quads if I have to—so the alternative’s this ritual that’s two hours longer and uses werewolf sperm.”

Derek’s tiny strangulated noise was going to keep Stiles warm and happy for a good week. Between that and the little show in the back with his uncle, maybe he had something going for him besides the stupid pretty looks.

“Ounce each,” Stiles added.

“You promised Argents,” was, eventually, Peter’s response.

“Ah, no, I _said_ we’d talk about it. Because honestly, guys, they’re going down anyway, and your manpain tragedy whatever can just wait in line. First-come first-serve.” Stiles set down his can and reached for the radio, now that they were getting back to where there’d be reception. “So the proposition is, you do me some favors, and get in my good graces enough that I take you along when it all goes down.”

Not a hell of a lot out here. News station, country, marginally different country, Spanish. Stiles’ Spanish was perfect but he hated mariachi bands and that seemed to be the prevailing style. He opted for first country station, turned down low enough to still talk.

“Hey, take your time,” he said. “Think it over. No need to rush into it. You want to sit it out, cool. It’s not a crime to get tired of the whole hellfire and brimstone revenge trip.”

Peter’s snarl made the whole car shudder. Grinning, Stiles turned the radio all the way up.

* * *  
It takes a while for Stiles and Scott to get out of New York City and across the country and all that. They need supplies. Forgeries. More money than the safe in the club’s back office had (it couldn’t even be fucking payroll time). Also, Scott’s a fucking werewolf, and Stiles can do freaky-deaky magical gore. They’ve got a couple things to sort out before they can take on a cross-country jaunt, no matter how naggy Scott can get. As Stiles keeps telling him, why the fuck would they show up on Scott’s mom’s doorstep just to wolf out on her?

The first place they hole up is somewhere in upstate New York, because it’s relatively rural and cheap and the vamps had had a business relationship with a couple farmers up there. Stiles had been in a rage when he’d torched the club, but not a _blind_ rage, and it’s a true cliché that people outside of the city are more inclined to buy a sob story. The farmers are sympathetic to the poor lost thralls, victims of some intra-vamp community strife, and even offer to help find a new brood to take them in.

Uh, no. They get an internet hook-up, and also Stiles makes the two- to three-hour trek into Manhattan once a week for the wonderful, wonderful resources of the best public library in the nation, and after two weeks they have the werewolf thing under enough control to pack up and move out.

Two days later they’re in Buttfuck, West Virginia when their car is rammed off the road and suddenly they’re in a running battle through the woods with a bunch of pissed-off, heavily-armed vamps. Who aren’t shooting to capture. Apparently, thralls revolting is highly frowned upon, and an example needs to be made?

They rack up a good body count, but honestly, the only reason they survive is because Scott drags their bleeding asses across a river gorge and into the territory of a fairly anti-vamp werewolf pack. Of course, that does not mean the pack is friendly to omegas. And blood mages are…apparently, down there with Satan as the supernatural world goes. Stiles can’t hide what he is if it’s splattered over five fucking acres.

But they’re young and scrawny, and clearly beaten to hell. Alpha Hazen is not a soft touch, not by a long way. She gives them sanctuary, food and shelter and space to run, and she goes on a couple walks with Scott in the woods, showing him the finer points of werewolfing while Stiles lurks in the back. But she doesn’t let her pack get near them, doesn’t let Stiles into her library—he breaks in anyway, gets away with it, but this is before they can afford good phones so he’s stuck speedreading a tiny number of books, most of which he later learns can be found nowhere else—and she doesn’t let the tiniest flicker of a pack bond form. Their days are numbered from the beginning.

Stiles is fine with it. Scott varies from day to day. He’s still not totally convinced about the werewolf thing and the biggest mistake of the whole time there is probably when Stiles mentions a (totally unsubstantiated, one-off, in a dubious reference to boot) theoretical cure: killing the one who bit you. After that, it’s all Scott’s mom or Scott’s absent alpha, over and over again, and much as Stiles loves the boy, he wants to commit murder just to cope. And then sometimes Scott’s reservations about his current state of being manifest in mournful comments about how they’re always going to be pariahs and they can’t even fit in with others like them, now, and Stiles actually does go out and commit murder.

Premeditated. Paid for. He is, in fact, trying to build up a network for going into the magical business, seeing as blood mages can also do plenty of perfectly innocuous, non-harmful, non-pariah spellwork, and make serious fucking bank, and he sort of accidentally drops the ball on their cover story. But it’s okay, because some people actually take torching a vamp brood as a recommendation. And Stiles is pissed off and angry, and yeah, fine, lonely himself, and goddamn fuck it he will _not_ think about his father, not now or in the future. Usually Scott talks him down when Stiles is like this, but Scott is off moping and Stiles is behind an occult bookstore and the deal just happens. And then another.

The money’s good. The new connections it opens up are even better. Scott does pitch a little bit of a fit, which he does not explain to Stiles’ satisfaction, but he ultimately goes along with it when Stiles points out that they can check whether anyone else is going to come try and kill them, or they can book it to Scott’s mom, but they can’t do both at the same time so yeah, self-defense so they don’t get Scott’s mom killed? And Alpha Hazen has been making more noises about them moving on, so push is coming to shove soon.

They jump first, sliding out of town in a car Stiles bought with his first kill money. After a detour down to Texas, to do a favor for Alpha Hazen (and also rack up another hit and sell some potions, because Stiles isn’t planning on the live hard die young path and he’s got an idea or two about the life expectancy of hitmen), they head straight for Beacon Hills.

When they drive into town, it’s a pretty day, sky clear and blue, and there’s an unusually large number of roadkill stains on the highway. It’s out there, yeah, and they’re in deer country for sure and still, it seems like a lot of stains. In some parts the road looks like it’s rusted over. Stiles almost says something, but Scott’s finally talking to him after the Texas hit, excited as hell about all the things he’s going to catch up on with his mom (movies, restaurants, Mother’s Days), and it’s even getting to Stiles. He usually tries his damnedest to reject the memories, but stuff is starting to trigger and it’s not all bad. He was happy here.

They have to go past the hospital to get to Scott’s house. The hospital, which has bullet holes and scorch marks, and a hole at the third floor level that is only seventy percent tarped over. Scott shuts up and Stiles pulls over. They stare.

People go in and out of the front doors, the ER bay. It’s clearly open. The damage is recent, but not that recent.

Stiles did not look into Beacon Hills beforehand. For—reasons. He’d long since convinced Scott to not try either, if only because that could point a big fat finger straight at Scott’s mom to anybody who was tracking them. And Scott’s not a researcher anyway, leaves all that up to Stiles. Who feels sick to his stomach, something black and acid creeping up on him.

“Let’s go to the house,” Scott says, and his voice is like Stiles has never heard it, flat and thin like gum stretched till it’s full of holes, but not quite broken.

They pull up to the house. It’s boarded up with police tape over the doors and windows. Thankfully, it’s nighttime by then, so they park down the street and then double back to sneak across the backyard. Scott isn’t halfway through the goddamn window before he wolfs out, and then there’s a second wolf and a screaming chick and Jesus _Christ_ —

Stiles stumbles back into the window, which Scott had broken, and cuts his arm on the glass because he’s trying to save his eardrums, and yeah, it’s pretty much over. To this day Stiles takes great pleasure in reminding Jackson (and Lyds, much as he adores her, because that scream, ow) that he was one heartbeat away from painting them all over the walls.

He tries not to remember that the reason he stopped was Scott, hollow-eyed and silent, staring completely perpendicular to the fight into another room, and the sudden, dreadful certainty that Jackson and Lydia were the only two living there, had been the only two for a while.

* * *

By the time the ranch house came into view, Stiles was more done than a burnt biscuit, and okay, yeah, maybe he should try to cut back on the fire references. He and the Hales didn’t need to like each other, but he did want to avoid having them actively trying to kill him.

It wasn’t his house, so once he parked, he did a quick walk around to check the wards and add a couple of his own. Then he went back to the SUV and opened up the back.

Peter was up against one side, propping his hands on his knee, while Derek was kneeling front and center, ready to stick his scowl right into Stiles’ face. Stiles dodged and half-crawled in to unstrap the cooler and his personal bag. “Hey, hey, you’re still here. I’m impressed.”

“Why, when you’re such a charming host.” Peter made it a statement, and his purr was definitely of the sex killer variety rather than killer sex. He waited till Stiles’ feet were back on the ground, then slithered over and levered himself out, still favoring one leg. “We couldn’t possibly part ways so soon.”

He and Derek had gotten rid of the ropes around their ankles, so Stiles just waved them ahead of him and into the house. The two werewolves stuck to the middle of the room and kept within Stiles’ sightlines, for all that Peter was avidly perusing the framed vévés and other pictographic magical artwork on the walls, and Derek seemed determined to sniff disgustedly at every stained terracotta tile.

Stiles dropped his bag on the nearest table and took the cooler into the kitchen. The fridge had plenty of room for his stuff, but his caretaker had had the sense to stock one shelf with a bunch of prepackaged dinners. He pulled out something that looked like enchiladas, and then two more containers that had some kind of beef, and stacked them on the counter to warm up. Then he went to check the rest of the place.

Not much to it. Utility room, with floor drain and some handy hooks in the wall. Two bathrooms, one a closet and the other a giant walk-in set off the only bedroom. Derek wandered in while Stiles was rifling through the drawers.

“Why do you have our house?” he said.

“Because we made a very competitive bid and the bank went, hell yeah. You a boxers or a briefs guy?” Stiles said, and then pulled out both. He tossed them on the dresser top and then began digging through the shirts. All cotton tees, all in neutrals.

“What, don’t you need your ounce?” Derek raised his brows at Stiles’ look, as if of course he’d always possessed a sassy mouth, and okay, two points to him.

Stiles snorted and turned back to the drawers. He had a spare set of clothes in his bag but they’d need to make one more stop before getting to Beacon Hills, so he settled on a white tee and some yoga-type pants he found in the bottom drawer. “Dude, not a werewolf here. Although really, that is some ridiculous healing factor. I mean, I know you took hits in Yakima, and they billed you as washed out of the pits so that means at least _one_ fight with an alpha, am I right? And then whatever other kind gestures the Argents threw in and you’re drugged up and bespelled and then I had to smack you into not starting shit you couldn’t finish, and you can still get it up? I mean— _damn_.”

He turned around and Derek was staring at him like Stiles was some kind of alien life-form. Even the rumpled hair looked a little disbelieving.

More importantly, Peter was standing between him and Derek, not so much violating the concept of personal space as giving it a full frontal rub-down, and had his head cocked like he was going in for a sniff of Stiles’ head. Hair. Ear. Whatever. Stiles had sensed it—way too long with wolves to not—but he had to give it to the guy, man had enough presence to make Stiles’ start at least half-genuine.

Peter leaned back, just faintly smug around the corners of his mouth. “This one, I think.” He plucked out a cotton tee. “Now, I do believe a hot shower was mentioned? We were quite well-behaved for the drive.”

“Hey, can I ask something? How come they didn’t just headshot you first chance they got?” Stiles said. “I mean, so Kate’s a wingnut—” oh, interesting, Derek twitched and Peter went glacial “—and Alex is basically a serial killer on a leash, but Gerard and Chris aren’t the kind of people who’ll talk you to death.”

“Am I the bad guy now?” Peter said mildly. “Also, I fail to see the tactical value of sentencing to death a family that hadn’t had a violation in nearly a hundred years.”

“Which is why I said that Kate was a wingnut.” Stiles glanced over at Derek, who followed up that sharp hiss with a head duck that had guilt written all over it. “Er, so…I hate to be that guy, but I’m gonna be that guy and ask if you two have the same story on that one. It’s still a long drive to NorCal and I get antsy if I think there’s an elephant in the room with me.”

Of all things, Derek made an aborted jerk in _Stiles’_ direction. Nothing to do with personal feelings, everything to do with Peter’s entire skull shifting form and back in one incredibly violent second. Even then, his fangs were still poking out from between his lips, adding a hiss to his voice. “Why, yes, my nephew and I have cleared that up. Now, I have to admit I’m curious as to how _you_ found out.”

“That’s not really show me yours, I’ll show you mine,” Stiles said. He raised his arm nice and slow and pointed over Peter’s shoulder. “Shower.”

Peter didn’t turn his head. His eyes were glowing like foxfire. The fangs dropped further—Derek let out a noise that was half-suck, half-whistle, forlorn and tense all at once—and then Peter suddenly smiled. Rolled back his shoulders, all strange liquidity and blunt teeth. “Thank you, Stiles,” he said.

“Yeah, hey, no.” Stiles grabbed the rope around Peter’s wrists as Peter lunged, and then yeah, gnashing teeth and Derek jumping in and God, he should’ve had that last can of Red Bull.

Something like two minutes later, the nice California king bed was slumping down on its two broken front legs, there was a hole in one wall, and Stiles was sitting on a wolf-pile. Derek was on the bottom, face-down with his legs twisted to the side, not that that stopped him from kicking out anyway, like he had any leverage. Peter was sprawled on top of him, face-up and bent backwards so Stiles could keep his hands pinned over his head (and on Derek’s shoulder), and had, apparently, decided to acknowledge that he wasn’t going to get Stiles’ claws away from his throat with sheer brute force.

“Do we seriously have to keep doing this?” Stiles asked Peter. He rode Derek’s weakening struggles, careful to keep his claws just short of major blood vessels. “Look, creeper creeper, I was up all night winning your asses off those hunters and that was on top of a full business day, too. You want me to do anything about the alpha injuries, give me a fucking break.”

Peter laughed sharply. It jerked his head so that blood oozed from under Stiles’ claws and began dripping onto Derek. At least it made Derek stop.

“I _should_ like you, you relentless little shit,” Peter said, wild and angry and more than a little bit mad.

“Uncle,” Derek grunted. He twisted his head, then dropped it against the carpet. “Fucking—Stiles. Please.”

“Oh, yes, please,” Peter said. “Please, please, be so _good_ for you—”

“Goddamn it, Peter!” Derek snarled. He got his arms under him and instead of pushing up, went sideways, getting enough of him out from under Peter to finally look Stiles in the eye. “Fine, you fucking—fine, neither of us got shot on sight because Gerard Argent needs Alpha blood. _Alphas._ So he’ll throw us into fighting pits with alphas, and then suck it out of us later. There, are you happy?”

Peter had shut up as soon as Derek had snarled, shocked enough to snap out of his fit. He went limp under Stiles, barely moving even when Stiles pulled out his claws. The glow in his eyes faded and he blinked up at Stiles like he’d forgotten how the hell they’d ended up here.

“That’s a stupid question,” Stiles said. He got off of Peter, then squatted to the side as the two werewolves slowly dragged themselves apart.

Peter rolled onto his side, then onto his stomach, pressing his forehead against the ground and closing his eyes. Not his usual reaction, from how Derek circled back around and hovered over his head on hands and knees. Blood was smeared all over the side of Peter’s neck, while more was matting Derek’s hair. A few drops sprinkled down on Peter when Derek bent too low; they had caught Derek’s eye and he grimaced and backed up, only to freeze when Peter did something. Put a hand somewhere on Derek—their bodies were keeping Stiles from seeing where.

Derek bit his lip and made a soft whining sound. His eyes flicked up to Stiles, then down. Not for show. Just guilt and embarrassment and worry, and if Stiles had grown up different maybe he’d feel bad about watching it.

“Shut up, Derek,” Peter muttered. There was a gravelly undertone to his voice, some kind of subvocal communication going on beyond human hearing. He sighed into the carpet, then turned his head towards Stiles. “It’s blood magic, I assume. Gerard’s not a vampire. Professional interest of yours?”

“Nah, personal.” Stiles lifted his hand. He paused when Peter stiffened, then leaned over and tugged Peter’s hands out from under him, and untied them. Then he sat back where he was, eyeballing Derek till the man, with hunched shoulders and hard stare, bent down and began licking at the punctures on Peter’s neck.

They were healing. Not instantaneous like a normal injury, not quite as slow as an alpha-inflicted wound. Faster than Jackson, who was still Stiles’ only other standard of comparison. Well, since the other betas listened to Scott, and Deucalion was many things, but not stupid enough to let Stiles near him when he was wounded.

“Derek,” Stiles said. “Hands?”

After a moment, Derek wordlessly held them out. Stiles undid the knots and then idly coiled the rope between his hands as Peter rolled over, pushing up on his elbows and briefly nuzzling the red marks on Derek’s wrists. Derek blinked hard, then shoved whatever he’d been feeling back behind a stone face, clearly for Stiles’ benefit.

Peter got to his feet. The clothes had gone everywhere, so he limped about the room a bit, snagging this or that piece, and then he turned towards the bathroom.

“It’s a huge shower, you know,” Stiles said to Derek, who managed to look murderous and deer-in-headlights caught out at the same time. Stiles shrugged—can lead horses to water and all that—and got up himself. “Gonna be napping in the living room, don’t kill each other or anything. Fucking sucks that the werewolf healing doesn’t bleed over, gotta say.”

It wasn’t remotely subtle the way the two of them went on alert.

“Blood magic,” Stiles said with a smile. “But hey, no worries, Scott’s my brother but neither of us buy into that whole share everything bullshit. I mean—you want to be in his pack, well, it’s a free world. Sorta. But I’m not going to just give you to him.”

Derek choked down something, and probably not a nice something. Peter just eyed Stiles over one shoulder before abruptly shutting the bathroom door. He didn’t slam it, but it was a pretty firm signal. Derek, pretty, overextended man that he was, sat down on the floor and rubbed his hand over his face. And all the goddamn rolling around was really doing a number on Stiles’ libido. All the blood on his hands aside, he had to be the best-mannered under-twenty in the fucking county, at least.

But yeah, that couch was calling. Stiles padded on out of the room, flopped down, and was out almost immediately.

* * *

Fact: Melissa McCall dies at work, in the line of duty, putting herself between her patient and harm’s way. She dies a hero.

Opinion: Scott’s mom is obsessed to the point of insanity. She’s had a rough ride, of course: divorce, single mom, and then her son goes over to a friend’s for a play date and never comes home. Her son goes over to a friend’s without letting her know. The daycare is so used to Stiles and Scott going home together that they don’t bother to phone Scott’s mom first, and so she works a double shift and gets home weary, lead-legged, guiltily glad that the Stilinskis are taking on her son for the night, and sleeps the deep, untroubled sleep of the content.

She spends the rest of her life trying to make up for that one night.

Fact: Stiles’ mom dies in essentially what is a permanent psychiatric hold. There’s a long-term care facility for that, but Stiles’ mom is kept at the hospital via the combined efforts of her husband and Melissa McCall. The hospital is a mere ten minutes closer to the sheriff’s office than the long-term care facility, but she’s all the sheriff has left, after all, and she and Melissa had once been so close that they joked they were sisters from different wombs.

Opinion: Scott’s mom is, in her way, every bit as ruthless and cold as any hardened criminal her ex-husband tracks. She is convinced to her dying day that Stiles’ mom remembers more than she lets on. That the woman just doesn’t _want_ to remember, doesn’t want to face up to the enormity of what she’s done. That’s not going to keep Scott’s mom from poking and prodding, from asking again and again and again: _who_ took them. She gets herself assigned to Stiles’ mom for good because she’s not going to let a single day go by without asking.

Fact: Stiles’ mom, if pressed severely, will state that the Fair Man took the boys.

Opinion: This is not entirely inaccurate. However, “fair” is open to interpretation.

Fact: Melissa McCall is a well-known, well-beloved figure in the community, always ready and willing to ply her nurse’s trade whether it’s in the hospital or not.

Opinion: Scott’s mom is willing to entertain just about anybody to get information. A couple chance late-night incidents open her eyes and she’s just a single woman, no dependents, so she’s got no one to worry about her not getting home, no one to fret that she’s hanging out in bad areas of town, talking up dangerous people (and things). A little free medical care opens a lot of mouths—and if she learns some other tricks, looks the other way and ignores some wounds, well, that’s the path she walks now.

Fact: Melissa McCall is a strong, upstanding woman with a keen brain, who is one of the first to question the sudden rise in wild animal attacks, the tactics of the out-of-town hunters brought in to root out the problem, the heavy-handed propaganda issued by their head Gerard Argent.

Opinion: Scott’s mom had something going on with Kali. Oh, get your mind out of the gutter. Not everything comes down to sex. But the Alpha pack rolls into town, “concerned” that no pack has managed to successfully annex the Beacon Hills area since the Hales all ran north to battle the Argents, and settles in for a long haul. Kali likes a midnight hunt, Scott’s mom tries to take the graveyard shifts so she’s got more privacy for her research, and they end up at the same 24-hour diner night after night. Who knows what they talked about, or how much—for all anyone knows, they chatted once or fifty times, just exchanged the occasional pointed look at suspicious stains or exchanged life stories. At any rate, Kali gets caught out by the Argent hunters and makes a break for it, runs for the hospital _and not_ her pack, and just barely survives to be checked into the ICU.

Fact: Melissa McCall dies in the crossfire because a junkie on a psychotic break comes at a hunter patrol and just won’t stop, on a slow night in the hospital over a holiday weekend, when staffing is at its lowest and no one’s there to hear her last breath.

Opinion: Scott’s mom meant to do it. Scott’s mom knows damn well by then that werewolves can hear conversations from a different floor. She ran across the two poor kids bitten by those twins weeks ago, nursed Lydia through her hospital stint and then let Jackson come to her back door to admit he had something unnatural going on, and she’s been sneaking them into the hospital ever since. If the Argents weren’t such a distraction, the Alpha pack would’ve long since killed a lone omega and an untrained banshee, but the hunters have picked off Ennis and wounded Deucalion badly enough that he needs to lie low to heal, and so sleeping over at the hospital is enough to keep Jackson and Lydia safe and off the radar. Up until it isn’t, and a group of hunters show up unannounced to collect Kali.

Scott’s mom has long since ruled out hunters as any help. Every one she’s run across, without fail, is a killer and not a rescuer. They’ll offer to give her a hand, right, try to track it down for her, whatever took her son, but they won’t bring her son back. She’s let a few take her out on hunts, the ones susceptible to a lonely attractive woman, and she’s watched them stomp right past the dying victims after their so-called monsters. If it’s possible, she might hate them more than the monsters themselves, since they could do so much more. They could, and they don’t.

Besides. She’s strong enough to admit that maybe Scott isn’t human anymore. And if so, well, when he comes home she damn well isn’t having anyone hunt him.

Jackson and Lydia are down another floor, safe for now. She raises her voice when she orders the hunters to leave and hopes Jackson is paying attention for once, and in her pocket she blind-dials the Sheriff’s office. Gerard Argent has been waving around his special assignment from the governor like carte blanche, but he’s no better in the daylight than his monsters. Enough attention and he’ll crawl out of town with his tail between his legs.

Fact: Melissa McCall dies because no one helps her.

Opinion: Scott’s mom wanted it that way. She dies because she holds a gun on Jackson when he stupidly comes up to see what’s happened. Kali is long gone. One of the hunters is lying dead on the floor and at least one more is not going to live much longer; his guts were showing as Kali threw both of them through the window. The Sheriff’s voice is squawking from her broken phone across the room, and Jackson is begging her to take the bite. He’ll find Deucalion, someone, he says.

Scott’s mom doesn’t like werewolves much better than hunters. She’s fond of Jackson, but he’s too young, and she’ll be damned if she’s going to owe a favor to the Alphas. She wants both groups gone when Scott gets back. Because he will.

She tells Jackson what he’s going to do. Makes him promise her. And then, only then, does the gun fall from her lax hand.

Fact: Melissa McCall is buried in the cemetery.

Opinion: The thing that Jackson and Lydia get out of the graveyard in the dead of night, dodging Alphas and hunters alike, it’s not Scott’s mom. There’s still a body in the ground. Mostly.

It’s not Scott’s mom. But it remembers Scott’s house. When Lydia sits back with shaking hands and looks it in the eye, when Jackson croaks out _who are you_ , it looks at them with its plastic eyes in its potter’s clay face, and it says, _I’m home._

Fact: What happened at the McCall house was that a group of hunters disgraced themselves, shooting up innocent people in a dead woman’s house, and the only reason they aren’t up on murder charges is that they’re also all dead.

Fact: The number of bodies contributes to the Sheriff’s resignation and sudden departure from town.

Fact: Gerard Argent has to relocate his whole empire to eastern Washington to avoid the blowback.

Opinion: If there’s anything left of Scott’s mom on this earth, it’s sleeping deep in the bones of his old house, content that its job is done. When Scott comes back, he’ll still have a home.

* * *

Something hit Stiles on the shoulder. He promptly ripped it in half with his magic, dragging his head out of a muggy, dreamless sleep. When he looked up, Derek and Peter were leaning over the back of the couch and staring at him.

“The creepiest wolves that ever creeped,” Stiles muttered. He jerked his limbs this way and that, grimacing as his joints cracked, and then rolled up onto his feet and stepped over the sacrificed sock. “Shower’s free? Awesome, don’t eat my dinner.”

“We already ate,” Derek called at his back.

Stiles ignored him. Now that all the neurons were firing again, the greasy-sticky feel of his unwashed skin was really bugging him.

Somebody had broken the remaining legs of the bed and just lowered the whole thing to the floor, he noted. He really must have been down, if he hadn’t woken for that. Bathroom looked okay. Someone had even gotten him a fresh towel. Creepy brown-nosing wolves, and shit, he needed to give Scott a call.

The shower was fantastic. He felt miles better afterward, like an actual human being instead of a very good fake. Clothes were kind of baggy—he wasn’t about to give up his plaid shirts, but Lydia had been swapping out for better sizing and tailoring almost as soon as she’d moved in—and he couldn’t keep from listening to the thwap-thwap of the excess fabric of his pants as he walked.

When he got to the kitchen, Derek and Peter were sitting at the breakfast bar and Derek was glaring at Stiles’ phone. Peter was reading a second edition of the Voynich codex. They’d dug into the medical supplies and Derek’s face looked battered instead of gory.

“You missed a call,” Derek said as Stiles opened up dinner.

“Hmm, yeah?” Stiles pulled his phone over and began tapping one-handed. Oh, okay, maybe he didn’t have to call Scott, if bro was warning he wouldn’t have reception. Though God, Deucalion, enough with the fucking calls.

Derek continued with the glower, as if that was an actual language. “Your phone’s warded.”

“Few weeks with the Argents and what bothers you is a ringtone,” Stiles mumbled around his food. He rolled his eyes. “I’d put it on silent for your delicate ears but there are emergency overrides. Speaking of, why the fuck does Deucalion never leave a message? Is it not the British thing to do, or what?”

Peter turned the page. “How on earth did you turn him up?”

“See him in the pits or something?” Stiles countered. Half his tray was empty, and his stomach didn’t feel like a knot lined with razor blades anymore. He dropped his phone and reached to the side, flailed thin air for a second, and then pulled out the nearest knife from the kitchen block.

Surprisingly enough, it was Derek who answered. Maybe the tussle earlier had knocked something loose. “Gerard Argent has his cane mounted on the wall of his office. We heard that the Alpha pack was slaughtered in Beacon Hills.”

“Slaughtered is such a strong word for a bunch of massacre-happy nutjobs on both sides,” Stiles said. He tested the edge of the knife, then looked up to catch Derek’s eye. “What? Oh, no, no, wasn’t me and Scott. We got in town about a month after it all went down. Deucalion turned up when we knocked over the Argents’ outpost in Grand Junction. He’s a beta now.”

Peter put down his book. “What?”

“You’re right about what Gerard’s doing.” Stiles held out his hand, held up the knife. “Who’s going first?”

Derek deliberately slid both his hands off the counter and down; Peter wasn’t so dramatic but his hands stayed firmly on the book, fingers curled around the edges. “Can we talk?” Peter asked. Very reasonable and calm. “I think we’ve let our tempers run a little wild.”

“Yeah.” Stiles shrugged. “So?”

“So I think you can get what you want without driving us all to the heights of madness. I will admit for myself that, while there’s a certain appeal in the baser instincts, I’m not at my best when I’m…unbalanced.” Peter did a charming helpless shrug, all big blue eyes and upward cant of his chin. “If you’re not in favor of massacres, it’s something to consider.”

“Never said that, actually,” Stiles said. He tapped the knife against the counter. “Also, I’m pretty sure I never said I needed—”

“You do,” Derek snapped. “What the hell is the point of fucking us around otherwise?”

“Psychotic glee?”

Derek rolled his eyes. Maybe they’d _broken_ him. “This isn’t that. Believe me, I know what that looks like.”

And okay, there went Peter trying to figure out what face to take that with. Guilt wasn’t in there, that was for sure, but he didn’t seem pleased for Derek to be needling whatever Derek was needling. “Did you two fuck while I was out?” Stiles asked.

Peter went with smug amusement, while Derek flushed but maintained level and constant eye contact. “The point is, Stiles, we know what you’re doing,” Peter said. “And unless you want to invade the Argent compound tomorrow, you can’t keep this up for long enough. You can force submission all you like but it’s much more useful if we bond voluntarily.”

“Yeah, fair point.” Stiles slid over to the knife block and put the knife away. He eyed what was left of dinner, then picked up the tray and trashed it. Derek started to say something and Stiles made a hard right around him and headed back into the bedroom.

Even on the floor, the bed was as soft and awesome as it looked. The comforter poofed up under Stiles’ spread-eagled limbs, then repoofed as he rolled over onto his belly. He sensed Peter in the doorway but didn’t look up as he snaked across the mattress to bury his face in the pillow. It smelled like juniper.

“We’ve been in the Argent compound,” Peter said. The mattress down near the bottom sank, and then a spot a bit further up dipped. “Recently. And my nephew, unfortunately, is still a favorite of dear Kate. He’s seen portions of it that are closed off to all but close family. He could draw you plans.”

“Mmmph.” The juniper scent grew as Stiles raised his head. He didn’t take his face fully off the pillow but used his chin to hold it up so that he could dig around underneath. Turned up a cute little embroidered sack, which he stuffed back down between the headboard and the wall. Then he arched his head back to look at Peter behind. It hurt his neck but Peter’s eyes dilated for just a second. “Yeah, and you get Kate?”

Peter nodded, all pleased like Stiles had done his equations. “Of course, I’m more than happy to take any additional members of the family, but I do insist on her,” he said. His voice was dropping well into honeyed territory, his head dipping lower and lower, right over the curve of Stiles’ throat. “It’s a personal matter. I’m sure you understand.”

“Yep,” Stiles said, and then twisted around and grabbed Peter by the back of the head and kissed him hard.

Peter was into it. He was good, if a little less controlled than Stiles would’ve expected, what with the great seducer act and all. His hands pressed two hot lines down Stiles’ back, then clamped to Stiles’ hips. Stiles rolled them up into the grip, rubbing himself all along Peter’s front, and then dropped his hand to the back of Peter’s neck. He made it an open-mouthed kiss and got to feel Peter’s fangs dropping for just a second.

After that Peter was spitting mad, roaring and snapping at Stiles while the bedclothes did their damnedest to cocoon the werewolf. Stiles tumbled free to the floor, jerked open the closet to the background music of shredding linen, and came out with a handful of belts. He tossed them at the bed and kept on going to the living room without breaking stride.

Derek was scraping madly at the runes on one of the windowsills with a piece of broken bed leg. Not bad, though he made a lame attempt to pitch the wood at Stiles’ head. Werewolf reflexes whatever. Stiles had to chase him into the kitchen, where he grabbed for the knife block, howled as it burned his hand, and then—okay, well, sudden about-face leap right for Stiles’ face was a half-decent idea. Made Stiles feel sort of bad for when the ward triggered and whammed Derek mid-air, hard enough to break bones.

When Stiles hauled Derek back to the bedroom, Peter had mostly calmed down. The leather tying his wrists to one bedpost and his ankles to the diagonal opposite probably had something to do with that. He raised his head a little quick when Derek hissed in pain and curled up in fetal position where Stiles had dropped him.

“Have you bled on every goddamn thing in this house?” Derek gritted out.

Stiles nodded. Derek blinked hard and Stiles sighed and whipped a claw over Derek’s arm. Derek snarled and jerked back, then collapsed again. 

“Yeah, well, my line of work, that’s pretty inevitable,” Stiles said. He bent down and swiped his finger along the cut he’d made, then did the runes quick across the back of Derek’s neck.

Both werewolves growled. Peter suddenly threw his weight to the side and the belts snapped. Fucking cut-rate elves. See if Stiles ever bought dragonhide from them again.

Then the volume dropped by half. Derek kept it going for a couple more seconds before he stopped. He twisted around cautiously, shifting his body back towards Peter and the bed as he looked up at Stiles. A wisp of white fluttering past his eye caught his attention and he caught the loose butterfly strip, frowned at it, and then touched the now unmarred skin on his face. His limbs didn’t look like they’d been smashed like uncooked spaghetti either.

“So, the whole bond with you thing?” Stiles said. “Let’s not, okay? It’s not you, it’s me, but we can still be friends.”

“Did you want to explain, at any point, that you weren’t planning to enthrall us? And in fact were going to lift the previous claim?” Peter said. He’d recognized the runes, of course. “Perhaps before we destroyed the bed?”

“And spoil this fun game of who snaps and becomes a homicidal maniac first?” Stiles snorted. He stepped over Derek and Peter obligingly offered up an arm. Took three seconds to take care of him. “Come on. Anyway, the bed’s for you two. I’m good with the couch. Come creep on me in another eight hours, okay?”

* * *

Scott gets a pack. Scott gets a pack of one douchebag PTSD sufferer baby werewolf, one genius-level nitpicker of a banshee, a dead mom and Stiles. He does this while holed up in his mom’s old bedroom (Jackson and Lydia had slept in Scott’s room, in a rare moment of good sense), plastered to the sheets to get the last of her scent, not eating and not speaking and not sleeping, spiraling down hard and fast.

For the first three hours, Stiles tries to kick Scott out of there. When that just gets him a backhanded swipe that takes out the bedside lamp, he puts a pin in it and goes back downstairs and talks to the others.

Lydia has pretty much put together the events of the past month, and she fills in Stiles while Jackson makes some last-ditch attempts to look like a big damn hero. Or a big damn asshole. Five minutes and Stiles can already tell the guy doesn’t know the difference. He puts up with it for the length it takes to scrape up some dinner and determine that Jackson and Lydia are squatting in the McCall house because what they _don’t_ know is whether all the Alphas are gone. The hunters were pretty publicly kicked out by the Sheriff (Stiles bites the inside of his mouth till it bleeds) but Jackson is sure they didn’t get Deucalion and doesn’t know about Kali.

Then Stiles puts together a plate for Scott and makes Lydia take it up to him, and takes Jackson out on a little patrol. Well, drags him by the scruff of the neck, basically. He doesn’t have true werewolf strength, even with his and Scott’s little thing, but Jackson is so fucking omega it actually, deep down, makes Stiles’ withered heart cringe a bit.

Not for long. Jesus, the guy’s a selfish little shit.

Deucalion’s scent is still in odd places around town—mostly backalleys and neglected corners—but it’s old. He probably, sensibly, stayed to make sure the hunters didn’t leave a secret rear guard and then booked it. Stiles resorts to punching Jackson in the face and stabbing him with a paralytic-loaded needle, and leaving him in the car while Stiles tracks Kali. They make pitstops at the hospital and then the police station—Stiles sees three deputies and the new sheriff while he’s in there and his chest feels like a five-clawed hand is wrenching it apart, and then it doesn’t—for enough blood traces for Stiles to work with. Then they drive deep into the nearby preserve, until they run out of road and Stiles has to get out and leg it the last mile and a half.

Well, Kali’s dead. Mostly.

Stiles makes sure of it, and then turns around to find Jackson staring at him, wide-eyed and white-faced. He sighs and makes a shitty attempt to wipe his hands off on the bark of a nearby tree, and then just stomps back to the car. Jackson follows him, stumbling, coordination still off, mouth shut.

When they get back to the house Scott is still upstairs and Lydia is sitting waiting for them with an untouched plate, and Stiles says fuck to all of it and showers and falls asleep on the bathroom tile.

When he wakes up, Scott’s in the bedroom and Lydia is making snide comments about the smell. Stiles snaps at her something along the lines of no high ground considering what they’ve done to the place, and goes out for a drive. 

He’s got to think of something. He never…never put the whole world on getting back here and finding his dad, never wanted to admit some part of him still is a little kid waiting on his damn parents to take him home. But he supported Scott’s goals. He did and made them his, too, and at least was counting on some kind of—of finale. Something. Something at the fucking _end_ , for fuck’s sake, and of course it’s not that easy but _fuck_. Fuck, he wishes the Alphas hadn’t left. He’d take them all himself.

And hunters. He’s worked a little with hunters. Was building up some supply relationships with a few. He’s no idiot, knows full well that there aren’t any real heroes in the world (just broken people acting out), but he kind of got along with some of them. But fuck. Not anymore.

Stiles pulls over and stares out at nothing. There’s a giant hole in him and part of him knows it’s not all coming from Scott.

Scott’s the only thing. The only one. All he’s got.

And as Stiles thinks that, he starts breathing again. It’s familiar, that thought. Well-worn. Grounding. Yeah. Nothing’s changed. This _town_ hasn’t changed them. It can’t. They’ve been through the worst already, and they are motherfucking survivors. And like hell is Stiles ever going to let them be victims again.

Stiles goes to the grocery store and then drives back to Scott’s house. He’s halfway through cooking a giant, indulgent breakfast when he notices the house is a lot cleaner than when he left it. Lydia looks surprised when he hands her a plate of food, and relieved when he demands everything that Melissa McCall had come up with. Of course Lydia’s spent her time ferreting it out, down to the last careless Post-It.

He doesn’t put out a plate for Jackson, but he’s not a maid and the food’s all there in the kitchen. He gets a shared one for him and Scott, grabs one of Melissa’s notebooks and the police files he swiped, and goes upstairs.

They set a routine. Scott ignores him and Stiles reads aloud all of Melissa’s stuff. All of her ranting, her praying, her written sobs of regret. When they run out of paper, Lydia brings Melissa’s hacked computer and Stiles starts over. 

Occasionally Stiles takes a break. Showers. Eats. Chases Jackson around the woods because hell if Stiles is going to deal with other werewolves or hunters right now, and Jackson needs control like a baby needs milk. Bickers with Lydia over the quality of Melissa’s findings because…well, she’s there, and she’s a good distraction (Stiles hasn’t really got a _dating_ life, what with everything, so arguing with a beautiful girl over striga versus shtriga is probably the best he’ll be doing). And okay. She doesn’t even raise a brow when Stiles asks her to redact mentions of the sheriff to just whatever’s necessary to keep the narrative going.

He sleeps too. In the hallway outside of Scott’s mom’s bedroom, on a sleeping bag dug up from the basement. Jackson starts ending up there, crouched at the bottom muttering gutless threats under his breath, and then sidling up to curl against Stiles’ back like it’s a combination teddy bear and bulletproof shield. So inevitably Lydia shows up, in pillows and an air mattress under the sleeping bag, and finally the girl herself, with six-hundred count sheets. Stiles stares at the ceiling for a couple seconds, pondering his morning wood and the pretty pretty snoozing all over him, and then he’s staring at Scott’s face.

Jackson curses at the flailing knee and hand he catches, but just shifts over, used to Stiles’ sleeping habits. The corner of Scott’s mouth quirks and Stiles is simultaneously gut-deep relieved and pissed. “You _dumbass_ ,” Stiles says.

“Yeah.” Scott looks guilty. “Sorry. I just…”

“Yeah, I know.” Stiles wriggles halfway out of the pile. He hesitates when Scott grabs his hand and Scott winces, then sighs and drags Stiles the rest of the way up. “I’m sorry too, bro. This just…sucks. I don’t know what else to say.”

Scott nods. Scruffs at his hair, and it’s been long enough that Stiles can’t help the grimace at the odor wafting towards him. Which Scott gets and he looks mortified and resentful, and then resigned. And then he rolls his eyes and drags Stiles into a crushing hug.

“I’m sorry,” Scott says. “I’m so sorry. But thank you, thank you so much for waiting. Because I’m back now, and I’m here for good, I swear. We both are.”

“What?” Stiles says, intelligently.

Scott pulls back with his hands on Stiles’ shoulders and this look in his eyes. And Stiles has seen a lot of looks over the years, and so that this is a completely new one is a fucking big deal. “She wanted me to have a home,” Scott says. “The last thing she wanted—well, I’m not going to let her down. We’re home, Stiles. You and me. This is home. And if anybody tries to take it from us again—”

His eyes are red. “Your eyes are red,” Stiles says, so, so quietly. At his feet, Jackson whines and presses down low. “How are your eyes red?”

“Because yours are.” Scott grins and touches Stiles on the side of his face. “You know, you were right. Anything we do now is for us.”

“I’m always right,” Stiles scoffs. He looks at his oldest, only friend for a moment longer, and then he grins too. Steps back and grabs Jackson up by the throat, waves to Lydia with his other hand. “Fucking finally, Scottie. Say hi to the rest of the family.”

So Scott gets a pack, and it’s at Stiles’ hands. Stiles isn’t sorry.

* * *

Creeperwolf was not creeping on Stiles when he got up. He was worried for all of ten seconds, and then he picked up on Derek’s bitching and laughed and slouched his way to the bathroom to make himself vaguely human.

When he was done, Peter had a meal heated up for him. Peter was also reading that codex again, and doing a very good job of ignoring how Derek completely failed at figuring out espresso machines. Derek growled half-heartedly as Stiles shoved him out of the way. He drank his coffee in little, furtive, oddly adorable gulps, like normally he was fending off someone.

Stiles ate breakfast. Peter made some light conversation about some nonstandard runework Stiles had put on the utility room, to help make it stain-resistant (to _everything_ ). Derek glowered.

Stiles packed. Derek stood in the bedroom door and seemed disgruntled that Stiles didn’t do more than look at the bed. Which someone had…well, it was still shredded and the bed frame was still broken and once they were out of here, Stiles was going to have the caretaker junk it all. But the remains were neatly arranged. Okay, weird werewolfy urges.

Stiles loaded up the SUV and Peter and Derek climbed into the back. Peter had looked briefly surprised at being able to carry out the codex (Stiles had three copies and this one wasn’t the cursed one), then buried it under fussing with the pillows and blankets he’d also appropriated. Derek managed to ask, in the most begrudging tone ever, whether they could catch up on the news instead of fucking country again.

Turned out that NPR was running a series on regional folklore, and the current show was devoted to the recent spate of animal attacks in the Pacific Northwest and Bigfoot theories. As a result, on no less than two separate occasions, Peter quite seriously suggested that he take over driving.

Nah. If Stiles could drive with one working eye and hallucinatory substances in his blood, then he certainly could do it laughing hysterically. It was just icing on the cake when they brought up the Yellowstone wolf reintroduction program. Peter switched to needling Derek about his terrible corpse-disposal skills, and Derek mostly let him, and it was all very relaxed and enjoyable.

When they got to the next safehouse, the werewolves were still playing nice and of course it was to get on Stiles’ nerves. Didn’t mean it wasn’t working. Stiles didn’t let it show, but he was pretty fucking glad when he got a call about ten minutes after pulling up. He left the weres in the kitchen and went up to the roof so the soundproofing wards would handle the eavesdropping. “Dude, Scott, what the hell? Deuc’s been bugging the shit out of me.”

 _“Deuc says he hasn’t been able to get through to you,”_ Scott said, a touch disapproving. Case in point on them not sharing everything, Scott still didn’t have the slightest idea why Stiles and Deucalion didn’t communicate well. _“And dude. You’ve been wolfing out a lot in the past twenty-four hours, Stiles. I thought you said you could handle them. Do you want—”_

“If you send somebody to come get me, I’m going to send them back in tiny confetti pieces.” Stiles rubbed his hand over his face. His head…it wasn’t a headache, exactly, but there was this insistent pressure around the edges and especially near his temples that made him think one was looming. He’d caught up on sleep, a bit, and for all the brawling he’d been doing, he hadn’t had to pull out any of the big guns. Maybe it was a Red Bull crash; it’d been a while since he’d had that much. “Also, avoiding my question. Just because Lydia’s convinced I have undiagnosed ADD doesn’t mean I’m not gonna spot your flakiness.”

Scott grumbled something. In the background, Deucalion was testily answering…Jackson. Huh. Jackson was still a vocal douchebag, but he’d learned to leave Deucalion to Stiles. At least, Stiles had _thought_ he’d learned Jackson on that one. Seriously, talk about deficient attention spans. _“I got kind of delayed. Not a big deal, don’t start, okay?”_

“I figured when you said you weren’t going to have reception,” Stiles said shortly.

 _“You’re mad,”_ Scott said.

Stiles was—yeah, okay, he was worn out. Fuck. That fucking poker game had taken way too long. Maybe that was it. “No, I’m not—seriously, Scott, I’m not mad. You’d know if I was mad. Just like I’d know if you needed me to head over and help out. You know?”

 _“Yeah, I know.”_ Scott sounded so sorry Stiles wanted to punch him through the phone, even though that’d been exactly what Stiles had been going for. Loved the guy, really, but sometimes it just…dunno, hurt that Scott could care that much, still be capable of having his ego genuinely crushed. _“I’m sorry. I’m just—I got held up because it did go kind of pear-shaped, not in a massacre or serious injury way, okay, we’re all fine, but it was…it’s…um. Uh. I kind of. Met this girl.”_

Stiles rubbed at his mouth. “Okay.”

 _“It’s Allison Argent. She jumped into the middle of it and took out three hunters with crossbow bolts, and then she tripped the security so another two fried to death on the electric fence.”_ Scott’s voice thickened unevenly. _“She wants to talk.”_

“If Deucalion was trying to get hold of me because he’s got a raging case of the greens, I’m going to burn his eyes out again,” Stiles said slowly. “I know he’s a good lay, but you don’t need eyes for that.”

 _“Okay, Stiles. Wow, that just…and I’m not even!…she just killed a whole bunch of hunters and…shit.”_ Scott’s voice faded briefly out as he snarled. Someone—a couple someones—hurriedly exited wherever Scott was calling from. _“I’m not stupid, whatever either of you think—”_

Hell. “Scott, I’m not saying—”

 _“—and yeah, turns out she’s beautiful, but fuck you, Stiles, you live for battlefield comments about her dad’s ass and her aunt’s rack, and anyway, the real reason I’m calling is because she didn’t want to talk truce. She wants to come over to us.”_ Scott paused for breath. When he was stressed, his breathing patterns still sometimes went back to asthmatic. Their various owners had, of course, varied a fuckload on whether they cared enough to allow access to treatment, so Scott had learned the hard way how to ride out an attack. _“I didn’t say yes right off. I asked her to get us some proof she means it. She said she’d take out the Willapa base.”_

The Willapa base wasn’t the biggest Argent outpost, but it was one of the hardest to get to, and Stiles and Lydia were more than half convinced that it was a fallback armory. It’d be a big deal to take that out. As for Allison, well, for a while she’d been almost as much of a legend as the Hale house fire: everyone agreed she had occurred, nobody could settle on a story as to the what and why and when where how. Her parents had kept her out of sight, and while the bare majority thought it was for some sort of insane sociopathic heir boot camp, an insistent minority had kept saying she was in hiding _from_ her grandfather. Or that she was defective and was the shame locked up in the attic. Or that she’d died.

That last one had gotten a bit stronger when word had got out that Victoria Argent was dead—officially, suicide after bite, before turning—and Allison hadn’t showed for the funeral. But Stiles didn’t buy that. Chris didn’t flip out right for it to be that.

“Where’s Chris?” Stiles finally said.

 _“No sighting of him since the last one a week ago.”_ Scott was totally chewing his lip over something. _“Allison said she and he aren’t fighting on the same side anymore. Deucalion’s itching just as much to kill her as you, but he says she’s not lying.”_

Stiles rolled his eyes. “Hey, I have yet to give you my opinion on that. She leave yet?”

_“Yeah, headed out right after. I told her when she comes back, you’re going to meet her. That…okay?”_

“Yeah. Yeah, that works. Listen, I’ve been up on the roof close to ten minutes and these assholes keep destroying my furniture,” Stiles said. “We’ll talk more when I get back. But right now, I think…I think you did right. We should at least talk to her.”

 _“Great!”_ Scott started to hang up, then frantically begged at Stiles to not do that till Stiles managed to interrupt him. _“Okay. Look, I know you’re good, but you’ve been vibing weird. Just…let me know if. Okay?”_

Stiles sighed, but still. It was nice. “Yeah, of course. I’ll text Lydia when we’re in town. Know you’re gonna be busy with Deuc’s separation anxiety.”

Scott hung up on him, pointedly. Grinning, Stiles shoved his hands in his pockets and strolled off the roof.

The werewolves had already eaten, judging by the trashcan. Once again, someone had left him a warmed meal. In the background Stiles could hear the upstairs shower going (Peter) and furniture being wrecked in the downstairs bedroom (Derek). He slurped up the pasta, chugged a soda, and then wandered over to the bedroom.

Derek had a cock cage in his hands. When he noticed Stiles watching, his brows went up like Stiles was totally not in the right to be sputtering and pointing. “You didn’t ward these,” Derek said. “You’ll ward your spoons but not your sex toys.”

“Well, what, were you going to concuss me with the inflatable knotting dick?” Stiles snapped. Which was maybe not the best comeback, seeing as, depending on which dildo they were talking about, that was a very real option. “Please don’t tell me we’re back to the tag-team seduction-then-rob-the-john shit. I’m sorry, you’re banging, truly, but I’ve got a headache tonight.”

Derek’s brows knitted together, as if he was truly trying to figure something out, and not just diving back into the now completely disheveled drawer of toys. He put the cock cage back, picked up a vibrator, and then dropped that for a string of jade anal beads, lifting it up to head height so he could purse his—very plush—lips at the size of them. Then he traded that for a dildo. “What’d you say it was? An ounce?”

Stiles shut his mouth.

“Huh.” Then Derek set the dildo on top of the dresser and dropped his pants. He reached for his shirt next, stripping it efficiently over his head and flexing every single muscle in his back and belly while he was at it.

“I get it.” There was no possible way Stiles was not going to look. And enjoy. And strangle the shit out of the panic trying to creep up on him. “No, totally. And I’m glad you have finally figured out that in no version of this story do either of you win this by beating my ass, but let me tell you, the whole sex as a weapon route is sadly overrated. So whatever your pervy uncle convinced you was a good idea—”

“You really think I’m not looking out for that one, with my past history?” Derek said, mouth twisting bitterly. “I did tell Peter to back off.”

Stiles snorted. “Thanks.”

“Well, wasn’t working for you.” Derek shrugged, looking straight at Stiles. His arms were loose at his sides, his whole stance slightly tilted forward.

Stiles stepped back and Derek folded onto his knees, all perfect angles and smooth, smooth planes of flesh. He’d healed right up, all the alpha marks gone, and yeah, fine, fuck, he had to be smelling it all over Stiles.

“Gonna call me a tease?” Stiles finally said.

Derek just looked at him. And Stiles seriously considered breaking the man’s jaw. Not just punching, taking an actual fucking chisel to the line of it and driving it in, fracturing the long line of it into manageable fragments. Because fuck him for looking so sure—so sure of Stiles. Not of himself, not that slick confidence his uncle had, not at all. But of Stiles, of reading this exactly right, like whatever dumb teenage him had done with Kate Argent even came close. Like that shit even deserved to be in the same room.

Maybe that came through on Stiles’ face, scent, whatever, because Derek’s brow furrowed. He inhaled through his teeth, a little sucking noise, and then cocked his head to the side. “I might call you a chicken,” he said.

“That’s such a cheap shot.” But it saved Derek’s jawline, because that was not what Stiles had been expecting and thank God. Close, Derek, very close. Better than Peter—though Stiles still wasn’t ruling out Peter’s sticky fingers—but still not quite there. And that was all Stiles needed. “Yeah, no. Back the fuck up to the dresser.”

Derek was not, whatever the hell he thought, a natural at this. Sure, yeah, he made crawling backward look fucking _good_. All smooth slow moves and open stance the whole time, clear shot at the soft underside of his throat, the perfect abs, the nice thick cock swinging between his legs. He backed the fuck up, and stared up at Stiles through his long, dark lashes, and still looked entirely like he had this one.

Yeah, _no_.

* * *

Jackson keeps crawling into Stiles’ bed even after Scott’s up and about. They’re renovating the house and there are, admittedly, a limited number of places to sock a mattress. Also Scott might be mobile but he’s still spending an awful lot of time running his legs off in the woods and then falling fucking asleep out there, so that Stiles is seriously contemplating wards on the whole preserve. Anyway. Stiles loves the guy enough to trudge out every night and haul Scott’s ass home, but he gets the desire for a certain baseline of comfort. He puts up with it since it makes Jackson marginally less whiny about being the one doing the actual hauling of Scott’s ass. But no, he doesn’t think that much of it. He just figures it’s a wolf thing.

Lydia keeps trying to drag Stiles places, like the mall and the local clubs and occasionally a fancy restaurant. Lydia is not a wolf, and by all accounts, banshees are solitary creatures. But Lydia is the best of them at blending in with regular society, and she’s smart as shit and just as ruthless as Stiles (if in different directions), and she clearly understands that if she wants to stay in town, she’d better make good with Scott in some way. So Stiles figures she’s playing for unofficial public relations girl.

Scott starts running in the woods less and staying home more, and taking an interest in this pack thing. He’s ridiculously hard to dislike, and even if he can’t keep up with Lydia, Stiles can practically see how she goes thin and fragile the first time Scott, well, _tries_. Sits there and screws up his face and fights his temper at the insults, fights the whole fucking alpha she-bang, and asks stupid questions till he gets it. She can’t resist that. And he’s a lot more patient on the werewolf learning process than Stiles is, so it isn’t that long before Jackson is trotting into the woods after Scott instead of waiting for Stiles to order him, and thank God. Stiles hasn’t been able to do any business since they got to town, and they need money.

There’s a guy, Alan Deaton. Or there was a guy, Alan Deaton. He went down in the whole Alpha pack-Argent fiasco. So there’s a hole in the local community, and Stiles is the one to plug it. He sets up a little office in the industrial area (the shit Lydia is ordering for the house, it damn well isn’t going to get trashed just because someone doesn’t like his rates) and extracts Melissa’s contact list, and is up and running.

Does really well, actually. Well enough that contract killer of the supernatural goes on the backburner for a couple weeks, and just as well. Scott is angry at the people who killed his mom, but…so Stiles had offered to track them down and work out how to wipe them all off the face of the earth, and Scott had reacted—not how Stiles had been expecting. The house, the house, the fucking _house_. It’d been like Scott’s mom had chained him to the fucking place, or something.

Stiles appreciates the intent, sure. But, and he loves Scott, really does, but it’s still just a house to him. A house that he is investing a shitload of magic and money into, yeah, but a house. And also, the house isn’t going anywhere, which to Stiles says _sitting fucking duck target_ because he’s checked and the Hales aren’t killing off the Argents quick enough and Lydia (and he trusts her on this) doesn’t think that Gerard’s going to let a failure stand. They’ll be back.

But fine, not immediately, and Scott is still close enough to those silent days in the bedroom that Stiles will take a backseat. No killing, no reminding Scott of death. Just wolf-bonding and paint swatches and oh, my God, Scott even joins an evening program the local community center is running to “help the town heal” and soak up all the recently orphaned and/or single-parented kids. But it’s good for Scott. He’s cheering up. And it’s good in general for them. People are starting to look less funny about the idea of four emancipated (thank you, Lydia and your flawless forgery skills, and thank you, Jackson, for your late father’s very oily lawyer) teenagers living together and more sympathetic.

And then Scott comes home with a baby werewolf and Jesus Christ, yes, Stiles actually _agrees_ with Jackson on _what the fuck dude_ and Scott is all sob story bad daddy rescue chomp and Lydia wants to know whether it’s a dictatorship or not and fuck it. Fuck it.

Stiles takes a job out of town.

He’s gone three days. His el cheapo hotel ends up across the street from a bondage club, and he’s so fucked in the head but he gets this wave of nostalgia. Not that he’s rose-spectacling the time with the vamps, not at all, thanks, still has the scars and the white-knuckled nightmares, but he curses to himself for about ten minutes and then goes across the street because. Well. He got his shit down pat back then. Had to. Vamps weren’t going to give him mental autonomy otherwise. So being there, it’s like a weird form of meditation. He doesn’t really have to think.

He also gets to have sex, which is actually relaxing when your life isn’t on the line. He might even have a little fun.

When he gets back to Beacon Hills (because God, okay, he’s not that fucked up, people fight and it’s not the end of the world), Scott is there to meet him with curly fries (Scott’s mom did have good taste in diners) and the biggest apology face ever. And they have a halfway-healthy talk about maybe running shit by each other first, and werewolves needing packs and Scott needing to not be the fuckers who owned them, and Stiles being actually kind of fucking proud about how they’ve turned out and needing to not feel like Scott wants them to be ashamed of it. And also something about Stiles should take his own lesson and trust their bond more, but Stiles shrugs that one off because what? He _totally_ leans on that shit all the time. He’s probably more werewolf than Scott, frankly, for all that mountain ash and wolfsbane don’t do shit to him.

It makes more sense when they get home and Jackson takes one sniff and looks like he’s going to puke all over the gourmet dinner Lydia’s ordered in from somewhere. He follows Stiles upstairs to the shower and then into the shower and what the hell, drops to his knees under the spray and sucks the shit out of Stiles’ cock. It’s messy and angry and strangely desperate, and Jackson’s face under the water, his eyes, his pretty eyes, all flooded and hazy and oh, fuck, Stiles isn’t turning this down.

Jackson swallows, apparently. He rubs his face all over Stiles’ groin afterward, whining quietly. Not whining like bitching, but whining like this little, aching, pleading sound, like his skin is shivering right off his bones, and he is shivering, all his clothes stuck to him, expensive white dress shirt sodden and translucent, showing his nipples when he tilts his head back to look up. He mouths at Stiles’ stomach, muttering about how he’s better, he’s so much fucking better, why the fuck would Stiles even _go_ outside, and—

—yeah. Stiles shoves him off, and then shoves him out of the bathroom. When Jackson tries to get into bed that night, he bounces off the wards. He screams at Stiles, and then Scott and the noobwolf, what’s his face, are up, and then…well, okay, Scott does some alpha thing and gets Jackson to go away. Good bro. He leaves Lydia to sit on Stiles’ stomach. Bad bro.

Lydia wants to know what Stiles’ problem is. He politely suggests a gag and maybe a leash for Jackson. She gets this look on her face, like she doesn’t know whether to hug him or cut him, and finally she settles on slapping him. He sits up and dumps her ass on the floor, and then flops back and listens to her stomp out of the room.

In the morning, Scott asks whether Stiles is all right. Stiles says something, and Scott sighs and asks Isaac to step out for a second.

“You’re the alpha,” Stiles says.

“You know I don’t care about that,” Scott says.

“Well, you have to—”

Scott throws up his hands. “That’s not what I meant! That’s not the—we’ve argued that one to death and I know I was a dick about it but I’m…yeah, I’m the alpha. No contest. I’m the alpha. I’m going to get a pack together and take care of it and this place. But Stiles, you’re—”

Stiles stares at his breakfast. “It’s bleed-through.”

“Jackson’s not confused,” Scott snaps. He runs his hand through his hair. “Look. I’ll—I’m with you, first. You know that. I’ll—look after Jackson. And Lydia.”

“Okay.”

“It’s not a bad thing,” Scott says, softer. “You have me, don’t you?”

It’s on the tip of Stiles’ tongue, but he shuts it down hard and tight, right next to everything about his father. He borrows from Scott and pops some claws and cuts open his own palms when he curls his hands into fists. “I’ll let Jackson back through the wards,” he finally says. “Hell, fine, if the fucking spoiled ass is going to make that big a deal out of it, I’ll fuck them both six ways from Sunday. But you’re the alpha, okay?”

Scott reaches out and rubs his hand along Stiles’ neck. It’s comfort as much as claim. “Okay.”

It’s a lot easier, that night. When Jackson slinks into bed, trembling, barely looking at Stiles, head down like he wants it to merge with his chest. Lydia’s all eyes-up, breasts forward, but her fingers keep twisting and tangling in the buttery leather leash she’s sourced in less than a day ( _good girl_ and she goes all taut, nipples popping through her slip, thighs opening) and snapped to Jackson’s matching collar. Stiles does her a favor and wraps the leash around her wrists, pushes her down onto Jackson so she can hide her hands behind Jackson’s head. Picture-perfect couple writhing on his bedsheets, ready for him to lay wide open, and it’s a lot easier because neither of them are stupid enough to say anything about fucking staying. 

Which is why they get to.

* * *

The upstairs shower had turned off somewhere around Derek working in a third finger, and the wards hadn’t pinged so Peter was still in the house. There was no way he wasn’t smelling this.

“Slow down,” Stiles said. He shifted his shoulder against the jamb, then reached down and unzipped his fly another inch. His pants were baggy but not that baggy, and fuck. Okay. Derek did look like a pornographic delight.

A murderous pornographic delight. He stopped, his fist halfway up his dick, his other hand working a long black dildo steadily in and out of his ass. His head was back against the dresser, extending his throat, his mouth was actual blood-red because he’d fanged himself, and still, the overwhelming feature was the eviscerating look in his eyes.

But he slowed down. To the point that even that was a giant fuck-you, his fingers just inching the rest of the way up his dick, flesh paling under the pressure and then flushing afresh. His thighs were shivering so hard that the sweat on them was flicking off, little glimmers in the air, but he dragged his hand. Played with the head when he got them, leisurely circled it a couple times with his thumb before dipping into the slit and pulling back down, thumb taking a slick streak of precum with it. It had to be killing him but he was grimly pushing through it.

Grim. Okay, no. Even if it did look good on him. Stiles sighed, resisted the urge to rub his face, and pulled out his dick. He caught Derek clocking it and shrugged. “Yeah, yeah, I know, weres are always better. I’m sorry I’m such a normie,” he said, twisting his hip. His pants got caught on one hip and he straightened so he could push them off, then leaned back against the jamb. “But seriously, shame on you. You’re a supernatural badass and you still feel the need to show up on mere humans? _Somebody’s_ got insecurity issues.”

Derek’s face dropped from grim to irate with the twitch of the brows. “What the—”

His head had come off the dresser, and then the rest of his torso had followed, right up to the hip stutter. He hissed and his hand went off his dick and claws-first into the dresser. His knees jerked a couple inches further apart and his hips canted forward and it was just enough for Stiles to glimpse the actual stretch of flesh around the dildo. That grip Derek had on the dresser, it was more of a cling, and his balance was still off and he was fucking wobbling, overextended already from the shit he’d tried to pull, and his face, his face was so _pretty_ like that, right on the edge.

It was good, it was so good and so much better, the hard hit of lust from seeing that, like somebody had crawled all over Stiles with flame-tipped fingers. He laughed and gave his own cock a lazy, loose jerk, then lifted his wrist to his mouth. “Didn’t say _stop_ , Derek.”

He bit down just as Derek looked up. Derek’s eyes flared blue. His jaw dropped, his tongue lolling out between fangs, and his shiver went all the way through him. Put his shoulders back, pushed his throat up and out, tightened his nipples, ran down his abs and then shook out through his thighs. His hips swayed on the dildo, the hand on it more for show than for steadying now, and then jammed down, hard and sharp, bunching those fucking leg muscles.

Stiles took his wrist down from his mouth. The blood was running a bit quicker than he’d planned on, but hell, he’d survived worse. He let it dribble over his cock some, tracking Derek by the way the man’s breath would stick, then rubbed the bite all along the side. It burned a little from the sweat. He grinned and rubbed a little more, then moved his hand back and wrapped it around the base. Used his other hand to staunch the bleeding. “Derek.”

Derek was rocking on the dildo, his claws out of the dresser and digging into the floor, whole upper body hunched forward so he could get more of it in there. But his head was still up and he was fucking _eating_ Stiles’ bitten wrist with his eyes.

“ _Derek_ ,” Stiles snapped, and he could see how Derek hated and loved the way he jerked to that tone. “Fucking _come_ —”

His mouth opened wide, so wide, like his jaw was unhinging, and his back arched and his knees swept twin outward crescents in the carpet. The sound coming from him wasn’t a roar, it was a fucking tear in the air, whooshing over Stiles and echoing after. He looked at Stiles and then his eyes rolled up and back, still glowing.

“—on,” Stiles finished. He felt a little dizzy and took a nice deep breath. Helped some—oh, right, bleeding wrist.

Derek was flat on the floor, gasping into the carpet. He moved his head at the scuff of Stiles’ shoes, but didn’t seem inclined to get up any time soon. The dildo was still in his ass, matte black against his sweat-shiny skin, and Stiles thought about walking over and pulling it out, slow and teasing, and then huffed to keep his focus. Bleeding.

Stiles turned around and of course there was Peter. Standing right against the wall on the opposite side of the door, still drying from the shower, and looking just about as bad as Derek at the wrist. Peter’s eyes dilated when Stiles waved his hand.

“Got him nice and open for you,” Stiles said.

Peter took a step forward, and then one down, so his knees were touching Stiles’ toes. The towel around his waist loosened, dropped off his hips and crumpled over his groin, snowy white riding over thick dark hair. “And what if I want you?” he said.

“What, this?” Stiles twisted around to put his back to the jamb. He brought his wrist in front of him and considered the blood seeping out from between his fingers, and the blurry werewolf just past it let out a long, low rumble. “God, Peter, way to crush Derek’s ego. A skinny teenage arm—”

Like clockwork, Peter’s head went forward and up. His tongue flattened against the top of Stiles’ wrist, worming in between the fingers clamped over it, then drew back as his lips closed around a thin thread snaking its way towards Stiles’ elbow. He sucked—surprisingly careful—and then dragged his mouth back to the wrist. Then started nipping there, nipping and licking and trying to tease his way to the actual bite.

He groaned when Stiles shoved his leg forward; Stiles couldn’t feel Peter’s cock through the plush of the towel, but he could tell by the way Peter’s mouth almost slid off his arm. Peter took the hint and spread his knees, rolling his hips so the towel’s folds sifted and rode up Stiles’ shin till they did get some contact. His eyelids were half-mast and the eyes under hazy, from what Stiles could see around the feral glow.

It was fucking excellent for a couple seconds. Peter rode Stiles’ shoe like his hips were pure liquid sex and licked Stiles’ arm like it was made of sticky, sucking honey, and Stiles was still bleeding, yeah, but he was close enough to getting off that he thought it’d be worth digging up a blood strengthening cordial.

But it was Peter. A couple seconds, and then his hand slid up Stiles’ leg. Stiles didn’t jerk back. No room, and anyway, first law of werewolves: don’t run.

Second law (of Stiles): fuck them right back.

Peter’s eyes blew wide open when Stiles jammed his bitten wrist into the were’s mouth. Then jerked it out quick, before Peter could bite down. Stiles’ other hand went into Peter’s hair—handy, the curls—and then he yanked Peter’s head as far back as it’d go. Peter was still trying to process the whole wrist-mouth- _mouth_ thing when Stiles scratched blunt nails across the front of his throat. Then Stiles grabbed his own cock, fresh blood sticking to drying on his palm. Two jerks and his come was all over Peter’s face and neck, white stripes on red. He pushed up with his foot at the same time and Peter was gone.

Stiles slipped out from between him and the jamb and stumbled back into the bedroom. He was totally ready to nail Derek one, but Derek was still sprawled on the ground. Dildo out, fingers in, guess he didn’t take Peter’s words too hard. Maybe the snicker Stiles let out was a little hysterical. In his defense, the blood loss was getting to him.

The bathroom was still organized properly—guess the sex toys held Derek up—and it only took a second for Stiles to find the healing accelerant and the blood replenisher. He splashed the first on his wrist, chugged the second, and then slumped over the sink. His wrist tingled, then stung, and then the other one went to work and his whole body shuddered with—hot and then cold and then just plain _toofull_ , like somebody was overinflating his circulatory system.

And then he was okay. He looked up at himself in the mirror, rolled his eyes and then knocked on the tap with the back of his hand.

“Stiles?” Derek. Sounded kind of concerned, for whatever the fuck reason.

“In a second, baby,” Stiles called back. “Just putting on my face.”

His dick was sticky. Sticky in a different way than usual. He dabbed at it with one hand, wondering if it’d be worth trying to salvage the blood for a working, and then decided nah. The blood replenisher did mean he was limited till the shit finished processing out of his system, but he had more than enough juice to put down the Hales.

Blood was a pain to wash off. He did need a shower in general—but his stuff was still in the other room. Stiles did what he could and then turned off the tap and went out.

“I know it’s a nice carpet, Derek, but seriously, you want to marry it that badly, I can set you up with the manufacturer instead,” he said.

Derek had flopped over on his back but otherwise hadn’t moved. He pulled himself up on his arms as Stiles came towards him, then frowned as Stiles kept going. “Is there even a Saint Christopher—”

“There’s one, and I know you know it because I taught you,” Peter said, absentminded and sharp. He had the towel in his hands and was sitting cross-legged against the door, wiping off the last bit of blood from his face. He was smiling at Stiles but his eyes were wintry. “And is this where we say goodnight, darling?”

Stiles bent down so that their breaths were mingling. He stayed there long enough for Peter’s nostrils to twitch, then swayed in so their noses were touching. “I’m gonna leave some jars out on the kitchen counter and take a shower. Help yourself to the toy drawers, Derek already did.”

He straightened up. Peter visibly settled himself, then glanced past Stiles to Derek. Whatever the hell Derek’s eyebrows were communicating, it must have been unusually perceptive because Peter snorted and went lax against the door. “Many thanks, Stiles. You are, as ever, a generous host.”

“Good to see sex makes everybody stupid,” Stiles quipped, and went for his shower.

* * *

Jackson and Lydia. Jackson and Lydia. Jackson and Lydia. Jesus Christ, they’re good in bed. Stiles fucks them into the ground, uses all his tricks, improvises a couple more, and even werewolf healing can’t keep up with it. Then he leaves them in bed and drives into the preserve and naps in the car till his teeth don’t feel so on edge, till he doesn’t think he’ll pull so hard on Scott he’ll rip the wolf out of him.

It’s not how that works, but Stiles can’t help but think it sometimes.

When he gets back, he’s got his head clear again, more or less, and they settle into a life in town. Jackson goes back to school and talks Scott into doing the same, something about getting the community center counselors off their backs. Isaac is already there, and don’t think that Stiles doesn’t know him and Jackson are sniffing out pack recruits. Scott starts bugging Stiles to steal school records and Stiles normally wouldn’t have a problem with it, but his business is really taking off.

He outsources it to Jackson, who comes up with Danny, who doesn’t know about wanting the bite but who saw enough during the Alpha pack deal to want some, ah, special friends, thanks. Also sets Stiles up with better encryption on his website. Stiles sort of makes the mistake of telling Jackson he found a good one and Jackson just…he looks at Stiles, all open and eager, and then winces and looks away really quickly but Stiles is already planning an out of town trip.

Lydia catches Stiles on the way out, her bag already packed. Better shopping centers where Stiles is going, and she’s got to change over her closet for the season so of course it doesn’t matter what happens to this outfit. Stiles is half-impressed, half-pissed, but he says fuck it and takes her.

She keeps calling Jackson, and keeps doing it where Stiles can overhear, and that’s really annoying. And once they get there, she really does go off and clothes-shop while Stiles is taking care of things. But in between all that, she and Stiles talk libraries and illuminated manuscripts and cantrips. And she has all the cleaning things ready to go when Stiles gets back to their hotel room (and a new pair of jeans for him, way tighter than he likes them), plus a detailed proposal for relocating his office. According to her analysis, the current location is less than optimal if you take into account police sweeps.

The thing is, her alternative is buying the burned up Hale house in the preserve. Of course the first thing Stiles wants to know is why they should locate somewhere that’s already been spectacularly compromised once. The second thing is, that’s pretty fucking far from Scott’s house.

The third thing is, yeah, Scott’s not moving out of his house and where he goes, his pack will go. Stiles has already been working on Scott to build out into the backyard for more room.

Lydia starts picking her words carefully and Stiles starts shooting torpedoes in between them, and it ends with Stiles standing up to storm out and Lydia snapping to excuse her, she was just trying to give him the _space_ he needs.

So Stiles sits back down and they have the most awkward dinner where nobody dies or gets divorced. Then they go to bed. Lydia gets her side, Stiles gets his, and they turn their backs to each other. In the morning they move around in total quiet and Stiles can’t help but notice how perfect Lydia is at guessing his moves, at slotting into them. The hair on the back of his neck rises and he chooses the most obnoxious radio station he can find for the drive back home. She pops in some earbuds and plays with her phone.

They’re driving up to Scott’s house when Lydia says, abruptly, that Jackson might like to think he’s all dick but he isn’t, that he doesn’t need the sex. He’ll make do with something to scent, and Stiles’ wardrobe needs to be weeded out anyway, and if Stiles lets her do it, he can pretend all the discards went to the fairies for what she cares.

Stiles asks if a couture shopping spree is really making do.

Lydia says it’s less of a logistical hassle than contract killing.

Stiles looks at her, then looks at Scott’s house a couple blocks down, and then looks back at her. He kind of wonders how hard it would be to boot her out and turn the car around and pick up another job. But then Scott would call him, and Scott had been annoyed he was leaving in the first place because the wolves had finally come up with a short list of recruits and Scott had wanted to go over it with him. And Scott is so into this whole home-making thing. He’s happy. When he’s happy Stiles is happy.

They’re not one person in two bodies. Codependency is an _extremely_ inaccurate word for that giant bucket of issues, and Stiles has stumbled through enough psychoanalysis online to know. But look, fuck, Stiles wants Scott to be happy. And Stiles wants to be happy. Making Scott happy just happens to be one of the few surefire ways in his life to get that.

But yeah, it’s not the only way. And fuck it. Fuck it, honestly, he’s burned through so much shit, and then this fucking girl. 

He likes her.

Stiles says he’ll think about the Hale house, and then pulls into the driveway.

* * *

Shower. Nap. Check phone, reply to texts (fuck you too, Jackson, he’d told the dumbass that that bone saw needed replacing). Then Stiles went to get something to eat and saw the two jars sitting in the fridge. He blinked, then shrugged and took them out with his meal. 

The house was empty, so Peter and Derek had figured out that the wards would allow an outdoors stroll; Stiles did occasionally let members of the pack come down here and he didn’t like stupid werewolves pawing him awake in the middle of the night to be let out. If he wanted actual dogs, he’d get one.

Neither of them showed up when Stiles stepped out onto the back porch. They couldn’t go that far, and could probably see him—the woods here weren’t very thick—but he couldn’t see them. Well, it wasn’t like Stiles had much of a concern about voyeurism left.

The wolfskin he unrolled over the porch was a really nice one, lush gray with white tipping. From an actual wolf, shot right through the eye for a relatively painless death (and also, minimal damage to the hide), and it had cost a fucking fortune. It made him a little bit sad to be giving it up, but needs must.

He was halfway through painting the necessary designs on the underside when somebody thumped onto the porch rail. They watched him work through the rest of the ritual, not saying a word. Not even changing position, from the lack of creaking. So yeah, it was kind of a surprise to look up and find Peter.

“Yes?” Peter said, brows up, lips slightly curled at the corners. He totally knew.

Stiles turned away and reached for the heat gun. The extension cord had caught somewhere and he gave it a couple yanks to straighten out, then began running it over the designs. “Whatever.”

“You’re not nearly as immature as you’d like to be,” Peter said. He shifted his crouch now, rolling back so he could rest his arms on his knees. One of his nails got his attention and he gave it a long once-over that made Stiles wonder if body parts would consent, if they were capable of it. “So who sold you out?”

“Excuse me?” Then Stiles caught himself. “I know we’re talking over some messed-up games here, but I have never worked with Ar—”

“I meant before, when you first learned about all of this.” Peter’s expansive wave could have indicated himself, the moon, the universe. “It’s not that someone died. You wouldn’t be so calculating if that were the case. Someone sold you into this.”

Stiles’ history wasn’t exactly buried. He and Scott had been—the whole point of their service sometimes was to be visible, and while the cliché about dickwads forgetting the servants were there was true, they’d been picked out enough times to have—scars. And control. Mostly.

“Oh.” When Stiles looked up, Peter was…grimacing? Peter met his gaze, sighed, and moved so that he was sitting with his legs dangling from the rail. “For what it’s worth, I meant that as a figure of speech.”

“I’m not talking about it,” Stiles said, and shuffled over so he could get another corner of the hide. If that moved him away from Peter, he didn’t really fucking care at the moment.

“Would you like to know about the magic Gerard is using?” Peter asked. “If your source was Deucalion, I imagine you don’t know only Hale alphas are any good now.”

The mixture Stiles had painted onto the hide went from tarry and black to nearly colorless under the heat. It smelled like shit, too, and Stiles had to stop every so often to breathe into his shirt. He had to give it to Peter, the werewolf wasn’t even flinching.

“He’s holding off terminal cancer,” Peter continued, as if they were having a nice chat in a café somewhere. “However, even now, his morals won’t allow him to contemplate becoming a _monster_ , so he’s concocted a way to take away an alpha’s power and use it to heal himself. Somehow this passes muster as remaining human.”

“There was a pope who supposedly suckled milk from new mothers’ breasts and tried blood transfusions from young men, thinking it’d make him immortal. Impending death does funny things to your morals,” Stiles said. He sat back on his heels to stretch out his spine, then dropped onto his elbows and resumed drying the hide. “How come only Hale wolves work?”

Peter slid off the rail. He stood over the hide and Stiles, casting a shadow against the moon, and then knelt down, apparently interested in some of the symbols near the tail end of the hide. “My sister. She…laid some sort of curse on the man, when he was killing her. He’d used alphas from other packs before that, but he can’t now.”

“I think if I was going to curse my killer, I’d come up with something a little more fatal.” Then Stiles shook his head. “Okay. That might be a little harsh.”

“It’s a fair assessment,” Peter said mildly. “Although for proper context, you should know that Talia was never herself after the fire.”

“Word is you’re in the same boat,” Stiles said, and turned off the heat gun and sat up again. His back was seriously bitching at him, probably from all the couch-surfing. He hated to admit it, but he was looking forward to his own bed with Jackson to watch the door. “You get that we’re still not playing truth for truth here. These are all freebies, as far as I’m concerned.”

Peter gave him a thin smile. “Oh, yes, I do remember. But we can at least be civil, can’t we? You’re right, our previous interactions have been rather hard on the furniture.”

Stiles hummed tonelessly and scratched at his shirt-collar. He came off with something, and for a second thought it might have been the ointment for the hide—but no, it was pale and flaky, a smear of soap he hadn’t fully washed off. He scratched at his neck again, then moved his hand back to grab at the back of it and massage it a little. “How’d you get out? I’ve been in your house, I looked at the insurance investigator’s reports. They did a good job. Nobody should’ve gotten out.”

“There was a man named Alan Deaton—knowledgeable like yourself, and an acquaintance of the family’s,” Peter said slowly, carefully. “He had regular meetings with us to discuss a rise in local disturbances, and had decided to come early that day because he’d learned of something. You see, two local children had disappeared a year before and Alan was certain that everything was connected.”

“Touché.” Stiles grinned at Peter. “Should’ve changed the name, huh?”

Peter tilted his head. His eyes weren’t glowing in a werewolfy way, but the angle he had to the moon let the light fill them with silver. It was a lot more eerie. “I suppose if you cared whether or not you were remembered, but somehow you don’t strike me as that type.”

The heat gun was ill-balanced and sat awkwardly in Stiles’ hand. He fumbled it for a second, then clicked it back on and set to finishing up the damn hide. “So, was the fire responsible for your assholic nature, or were you born like this?”

“I was always inclined to speak my mind, but watching your family burn and then being trapped in your own body for a few years probably had an effect,” Peter admitted in a gracious tone. “There haven’t been nearly enough dead Argents in my tally.”

“Yeah, you’ve missed all the major ones,” Stiles said.

Peter’s jaw tightened but he stayed calm otherwise. “Talia held back so she could raise the children to fighting age. The right decision, I will grant her that. If I hadn’t had at least their pack bonds to lean on, I very much doubt that we would have survived to now. Even if I still wonder who Talia was punishing by making them my caretakers.”

Okay, Stiles had to laugh at that one. Had to. Derek in a little nurse outfit. He chuckled all through shutting down the heat gun for the last time and rolling up the hide. Peter didn’t make a move to help with either, but he opened the door for Stiles.

“You know Deaton’s dead, right?” Stiles said as he put away the hide. He drew wards tightly around the carrying-case, then set the case down by his bag. “Argents.”

Peter snorted. “Good riddance.”

“He…saved you?”

“He smashed Talia and me over the head and dragged us out, yes.” Peter’s lips thinned. “Always claimed it was too late for the others. For a human, perhaps, but he should have known. If he’d just broken the damn ash lines for us to—are we leaving?”

Stiles was confused because Stiles was on the staircase to the upstairs. Did Peter think they were flying from the roof? “Uh, no? I need more sleep, and anyway, Scott’s busy tonight. He needs to meet us at the border.”

“Ah. Well, then.” And there was creeper Peter, beckoning Stiles to go on up, like it was his house. Then following, and getting in Stiles’ way when Stiles was going to resign himself to the couch again. “We can’t be putting you out all the time, Stiles. It is your property.”

“Yeah. Exactly.”

Peter leaned in, then stepped back and to the side right as Stiles was gearing up to slam him around. “If you insist,” he said. “Although I’m surprised a boy as bright as you would martyr yourself like this. We’re perfectly capable of keeping our hands to ourselves—and if you don’t believe that, you seem perfectly capable of ensuring it.”

“Is that your way of telling me that Derek’s been checking out the bondage gear?” Stiles asked.

“It’s nice,” Derek said. He’d come out of the bedroom and was leaning against the rail at the top of the stairs. “Good quality.”

“You don’t mind the strange wolf scent on them?” Stiles cooed. Then rolled his eyes at the expected crack of splintering wood.

Derek stared at Stiles. Then he bared his teeth at Stiles—it was kind of a smile, the right shape but all sharp edges—and nodded past Stiles. Peter, barely chagrined, lifted his hand from the mauled rail.

“Dear me,” Peter said. “I suppose my hands can’t be trusted after all. Perhaps they’ll walk in their sleep, and end up in the living room.”

“I don’t understand how you even _do_ that,” Stiles finally said. “It’s not creepy. It’s so beyond creepy it comes out the other side into downright surreal.”

Peter laughed. Oddly enough, it looked genuine. “Come to bed, Stiles. I promise we’ll take up your virtue in the morning.”

He went up without looking back. Derek was still watching Stiles, and his brows jumped when Stiles shrugged and slouched up too. Then he darted back into the bedroom before his face had a positive emotion or anything, and Peter sauntered after him. So sure of themselves. When this was all over, Stiles promised himself, he was going to book a long vacation somewhere with nobody else around. Maybe completely out of the country.

But for the meantime, okay, yeah, Derek and Peter sprawled out over the bed, shirtless, loose sweats riding low at the waist and high at the ankles, that was not that bad of a hardship. And Stiles’ back was very much in favor of proper lumbar support.

There were, in fact, cuffs and chains sitting on the bedside table, and Derek did have a good eye for that. Stiles picked through them, then tossed a set of wrist cuffs to Derek. “On him. That’s your side.”

Derek’s eyes flickered but Peter didn’t even twitch. Just raised his arms over his head and fit his hands between the bars of the headboard. He stretched himself when the cuffs went on, ass pushing up, head rubbing against Derek’s arm, then fell back with a murmur.

Stiles held up the collar and chain. “And where do you want him?” he asked Peter.

Maybe Peter tensed a little. If so, it was there and gone and then all Peter was doing was smirking, clearly enjoying the way Derek had to jerk up his hands to keep from clawing the sheets. “He does a good line in wake-up calls,” Peter purred.

When the collar moved, so did Derek’s eyes. They stayed on it as Stiles walked around to the other side of the bed—Peter of course preferred Stiles’ ass—and then lifted to Stiles’ face, because Stiles was holding the collar right in Derek’s. After a moment, Derek reached up and buckled the collar around his neck.

Stiles dropped down and locked the other end of the chain to the underside of the bed, leaving enough length so that Derek could move about six inches up or down from the center of Peter’s chest. Or Derek could slide over the top of the other man and go for the floor, but from the look on Derek’s face, he wasn’t willing to bend that far. Good. Stiles didn’t want to deal with loud thumps when he was sleeping.

The bed was big enough that Stiles could lie on his back and not have to try too hard to keep his limbs from werewolf-touching. He folded his hands under his head—Peter exhaled sharply, irritated and lustful, and then chuckled quietly—and closed his eyes. And he was out.

* * *

Scott grows his pack by ones and twos. They’re all classmates from high school, and all thoroughly argued to death beforehand, and they’re _Scott’s_. And yet it’s Stiles who ends up downloading lunar cycle apps to phones and bribing the school authorities and running interference on pack hierarchy versus lunch table picking order. He ends up ferreting out the current title holder of the Hale property (forfeited to the state) as part of a search for suitable training space.

Stiles is _not_ the pack mom, fuck you very much.

It’s not like Scott doesn’t try. He does. He takes all the hands-on demonstrations, thank God, and mostly deals with anything that actually happens during school hours (because hell if Stiles is bothering with that now), and he’s the one who comes up with the idea to make the pack members take turns educating him and Stiles on pop culture they missed while enslaved to the supernatural. Which is both useful and a good bonding activity, and Stiles has gotten _so many_ saleable potions ideas from the Harry Potter series.

But the thing is, Scott is kind of shit at abstract thinking. So all the stuff about controlling the change, anchoring yourself, well, Scott knows it and can spot it going wrong and do a mean cover-up, but ask him to explain what the problem is and he’s reduced to limp hand motions and stuttering.

Stiles tries to make Jackson do it, but Jackson is an asshole, even if he’s more articulate than Scott. And the noobwolves don’t like Lydia, some prior high school bullshit clogging up the works, and fuck. Fine. Stiles does it.

Lydia keeps scheduling things like contractor interviews and construction permit hearings so Stiles doesn’t have time to go out of town again, and it’s annoying and impressive and Stiles can’t quite bring himself to make her back off. But he needs some downtime in between his regular business and his new line in werewolf counseling, and the newbies tend to stay close to Scott’s house when they go into the woods. So yeah, he keeps ending up at the Hale house.

He tells himself it’s curiosity about the fire. The Hale-Argent bitch-fight is legendary by this point, Alpha Hale invoking treaties from centuries back to basically drag all packs west of the Rockies into it and Gerard Argent importing hunters from the old country to keep up. And Argent’s going to be back to clean up Beacon Hills at some point, so Stiles might as well figure out what the Hales fucked up.

That works only so long as it takes him to discover the tunnels under the house. Or, to be honest, for Jackson to: Jackson has been trailing Stiles into the woods, and lately Stiles has been giving in and just calling for the fucker to come up. It gets on his nerves, the corner-of-the-eye blur thing. And okay, outdoor sex is also a pretty good stress-reliever, and Jackson seems surprisingly game considering his preppie background. 

So they’re post-coital and Jackson is trying to snuffle Stiles’ shoulder without looking like he’s doing it, and suddenly Jackson’s swearing and sinking into the ground, his whole leg to the knee disappearing. Turns out he’s stepped into the pile of dirt covering up one of the tunnel entrances. Stiles pulls him up, and then they dig out the tunnel and get the door unlocked.

They don’t have a lot of time right then, just barely enough to walk the tunnel back to the basement and come out the other end, but Stiles comes back that night with Lydia and Jackson and Scott. The house is just the burnt frame, all the contents long since emptied, but it looks like nobody had cleaned out the tunnels, aside from body removal. There’s a cache of medieval weapons. Moldy books. A slimy, strangely-shaped lump that turns out to be the remains of a stuffed wolf. A couple pieces of jewelry, a gigantic silver bowl that’s big enough to bathe a baby in, and a whole chest of chains. And a crypt.

The crypt is set into the wall, its inscription so grimed that they only spot it when Scott trips over a rock and bangs his elbow into it. Lydia announces that the inscription is in Middle English, and once Jackson has scraped off the grime to her satisfaction, takes a rubbing so she can go home and translate.

It takes a little more than that. Of course, the inscription is vague and references obscure medieval rituals from the time of Normans, and blah blah blah somebody walled up a sorcerer under the Hale House. More specifically, a sorcerer of the darkest, goriest arts. Blood mage.

The fucker probably deserved it. Stiles has not, to date, met a colleague, but blood mages typically don’t end up being the hero of the story. Or even the anti-hero. Or honestly, anything but ravening psychopathic killers. Best guess, the first Hales to show up made their name defeating the local Big Bad and built their house atop it because: one, sacrificial magic to strengthen the foundations, and two, gotta brag when you’ve got something to brag about.

So Stiles isn’t, well, offended or anything. But it does hit him, the idea of it. If he bought the property and was the one to restore it to its former glory. He’s not a megalomaniac—Scott’s way more into the territorial shit than him—but dramatic irony, yeah, he’s kind of a sucker.

He waits another week and then does some budget calculations. Takes Scott out for curly fries. Scott is manfully trying to not appear too enthusiastic about it, so Stiles makes a joke that’s only partly a joke about pushing baby birds out of the nest, and Scott shakes his head and gives Stiles all the fries.

“You’re scaring the pack,” Scott says. “And me, frankly. I never know what I can and can’t eat in the kitchen anymore.”

“That was _once_. And Boyd fully recovered.” Stiles eats the fries because the greasiness of them is overwhelming, gets over even the rising bitterness in his mouth. “But fine, I see how it is. You settle down, you have kids, you change—”

“ _You’re_ pack, you dumbass.” Scott pinches the bridge of his nose, then slaps his hand down on the table hard enough to get heads turning. For once he’s the one not giving a shit, staring down Stiles like a real, true leader of the wild. “You were before this whole werewolf stuff happened, and I don’t care about the, the shit they fucked into your head, or the pack hierarchy, or any of that. You’re with me. And to be honest, Stiles, I don’t know how much I care about what you think about that. You can’t—you can’t _leave_. Not now.”

The fries run out. They’ve scared the waitress so she’s not going to be heading over any time soon. Scott puts his elbows up on the table and drops his head into his hands.

“I’m not leaving,” Stiles says. “I just…”

“You can have your own stuff and still be with me.” Scott rolls his eyes. “I don’t even get why I have to tell you this.”

“Yeah, you do,” Stiles says. Because he’s an asshole.

Scott sobers. Because he’s still kind of sweet, implausibly enough. “You can’t—you can’t make up for it. Because it’s— _listen to me, Stiles_ —it’s not your fault, it never was, I never thought that and you can’t make up for it. Because I’m never letting it happen again. Okay? Nobody’s ever going to take you again. You’re gonna do whatever you want to do, because we _can_ , now, and you always did anyway, and it’ll be okay because I have your back. I got you. I got you.”

So Stiles buys the Hale property, and its renovation becomes the new pack-bonding activity. Lydia’s appointed manager, Jackson looks up that sleazy lawyer again (the two of them only offer to chip in with their inheritances _once_ , because Stiles blows Lydia off and takes a trip to a spot in Montana outside of cell-phone reception), and the rest of the pack works part-time as Stiles’ grunts in razing the old wards and laying new ones. Scott institutes some sort of crazy training tournament that involves a lot of running between the two houses, with a new car (which Stiles _is_ fine letting Jackson foot the bill for) as the grand prize.

It’s…nice. They’re bonding. Oh, fuck, they are. Lydia and Jackson still nominally keep their things at Scott’s, but they’ve figured out the best way to wake Stiles while minimizing property damage and Stiles is sort of easing from vigilant denial to grudging toleration. And he and Erica swap digital comics, and Boyd and Scott surprise him with a crotchety, rundown Jeep that is a perfect blank slate for experimental runes, and even Isaac sometimes brings him coffee. And it’s nice, and Stiles starts to get what Scott means about _home_ , and even thinks he might want it to. He thinks he might like owning a house (and not just a base).

It’s like Gerard Argent has a sixth sense for the most jerkass time to show up.

* * *

Stiles had rolled over at some point, and was eating the bed, while something undulated next to him, brushing up against his arm and hand, making soft wet noises and breathing hard. He blinked into the sheets, remembered, and pulled his arms in and under himself to lift his head. His eyes were full of crusty crap; he rubbed them clean, flicked off his fingers and then looked at them. Then sucked his fingertips into his mouth, one by one, making sure his tongue showed as he swirled it around them. He pushed up on one forearm and wrapped his hand around his throat, high up by the jaw, and then dragged it slowly down, leaving wet trails that went chilly in the A/C.

Then he turned to the two men beside him. “Good for you, too?”

Derek had dropped his head into the crook of Peter’s neck, his shoulders still shaking, the chain leash jangling across his back, but Peter was already recovered enough to look back. Even if his breath was still unsteady, his eyes still dark and hot. “You are completely shameless.”

“Yep.” Stiles pressed down against the soft bed a second longer, then levered himself up.

He unchained the werewolves and then got into the bathroom ahead of them. Handjob for his morning erection, brush teeth, wash face, and blow a kiss on the way out just to watch Derek’s face spasm. The whole stoic thing, while visually attractive, was getting stale.

Clean-up took a little longer this time, what with all the additional objects Stiles had to scrub down. That included, after a moment’s consideration, the SUV. He wouldn’t be able to throw them around no-handed anymore, but he didn’t think it’d come to that—at least till they met up with Scott—and it’d be a pain to do it in the preserve. No running water and all.

Derek wandered out while Stiles was still stripping the wards from the back. The closets of this house were stocked with a lot more than the basics in terms of clothing: not just stuff from the pack, but also bits and pieces leftover from various jobs Stiles had taken. Scott found it all very serial-killerish and Stiles knew that Isaac occasionally weeded them out (evidence disposal!), but using the belongings of your victims in spellwork was an old and ancient tradition. And like any police station could hold Stiles at this point.

Anyway. Derek’s taste in clothes, when he had a choice, apparently tended towards darks and leather. Black pants, grey shirt, black leather jacket. Not a bad combination on him, though Lydia was going to have something to say about ossified classics. “You sure you should be doing that?” he asked.

“I know you’ve got issues rearranging Peter’s face, but I’m totally fine with it, and there’s more than one way.” Stiles sat back and stripped the gloves off his hands, then dropped them into the bucket of cleaning solution. He hummed under his breath and nothing in the car lit up. Of course, there were still the various scrapes and scuffs and dents.

“What did he tell you?” Derek snapped. He glanced over his shoulder, then returned to glowering at Stiles. “Whatever it was, Peter’s a dick.”

“Yeah, so it looked like.” One dent high up on the side of the car was probably bad enough to chip into the deposit. Stiles traced it with a finger, then sighed and patted it. Not really worth the trouble of fixing. He’d just take the blacklisting at yet another rental company. 

Derek looked over his shoulder again, then dropped his weight against the car so hard that the back door dipped, threatening to close. Stiles swiveled around and smacked it back up, then hit Derek’s shoulder. To which Derek snarled before cutting himself off and looking…actually kind of apologetic. Filtered through the usual scowl, of course.

“I almost killed him,” Derek said. He hesitated, his head at that slight angle that meant he was listening long-distance, and then shrugged and shoved his hands in his coat pockets. “Kate set us up—Peter against Laura—my sister, then me against Peter. Peter was—he really tried to kill Laura, would have if they hadn’t dragged him back out. They had me watch.”

“Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of getting you for Gerard?” Also, seemed an awful lot for a month. Though having met Kate, Stiles could see it happening.

Derek snorted. “Why do you think we were in those cages? Soon as he got wind of it, he threw us in with some rogue alphas, let us kill them, and then did whatever spell to make us betas again. Then he auctioned us off to a different hunter family.”

“Took her toys away, huh,” Stiles said. He hopped out of the car, ignoring Derek’s growl, and picked up the bucket. After he emptied that out, he went back to the SUV and climbed in to put the backseat up. “Why wouldn’t he just lock you up and keep re-alpha-ing you?”

“You tell me, you’re the blood mage,” Derek said. He moved his arm like he was going to get in too, then took a step back instead. “You should stop baiting Peter. He was…he was fucked up with whatever Mom did to get him out of the coma anyway, after the fire, but he was getting better. But the spell Gerard used, I think it rolled that back.”

“He actually seems pretty stable to me, all considering.” Stiles jerked the last part into place and managed to pinch his hand in the hinge between the seat back and bottom. He swore, then sucked at the spot as he turned around. “And you’re really concerned about him, despite the family-killing tendencies.”

Surprisingly, Derek’s reaction was a tight smile. Bit of a resemblance there. “Well, not a lot else to do but talk when you’re caged up.”

“Let me guess, he was just trying to spare Laura from suffering? Or was it sacrificing one for two, he’d get the alpha power and break you both out? Proximity to Argents results in infectious insanity?”

“Oh, all of the above, and then a few you haven’t mentioned yet,” Peter said, strolling out of the house. There were good suits in the house but he’d gone for jeans and a v-neck tee. He paused to clap a hand to Derek’s shoulder, fingers dipping past the coat zipper and over Derek’s shirt before lifting. Then he stepped up to the SUV and put his hand to the side of the open back. “So, have we graduated to proper seating today?”

Stiles just rolled his eyes and scooted out of the back. Loading up the SUV only took a couple minutes, which Peter used to lay claim to the entire backseat. Derek seemed less than thrilled with shotgun, not that that stopped him from commandeering the radio. He listened to emo. Of course.

Things were relatively quiet for the last leg of the trip. That was, Stiles put his mouth on autopilot babble, Derek grunted in irritation and Peter chimed in regularly to try and redirect the babble to filthier places. 

The lewd comments got more haphazard as they got into familiar territory, and when they passed city limits, Derek abruptly reached over and turned off the radio. Stiles actually began to put some effort into his babble, but even Peter stopped responding once they hit the preserve. By the time they pulled up to the meeting place, the tension was so thick Stiles rolled down his window and it really was for air and not for the gesture.

Scott had brought Deucalion and Lydia, and Stiles’ Jeep. As soon as Stiles got out of the car, Scott gave him a big hug that actually dragged Stiles forward a few inches. Somebody growled and Stiles pulled out to see who, only to get Lydia all over him. “Way to make a scene, guys,” Stiles muttered, trying to untangle Lydia’s hair from his cuff. “I wasn’t gone that long.”

“You weren’t answering my texts,” Lydia said. She patted him extra-hard on the cheek, then freed her hair and stood back. “And these are the famous Hales.”

“Infamous, rather,” Deucalion said dryly. He was staying well behind Scott. “Peter.”

Peter smiled with fangs. “Deucalion. I’m charmed to meet your new _alpha_.”

So it had been a _very_ long time since those two met up. Deucalion raised his brows, then simply tilted his head as Scott, frowning, stepped back to set one hand on the back of Deucalion’s neck; Peter blinked hard, his smugness cracking, and then his smile grew wider and sharper. 

Stiles rolled his eyes and grabbed Peter by the arm. He let go immediately and ran his hand up the side of Peter’s neck while Peter was still turning to look at him. Peter couldn’t help the quick inhale, and then went rigid, his mouth a flat tense line, as he watched Stiles hold his hand out to Scott, palm-up.

Not in the formal werewolf playbook, no, but they’d tried this out on enough others to know what the reaction would be. Scott shot Stiles an exasperated look, but bent and whiffed Stiles’ hand. He straightened up and then he and Stiles both looked expectantly at Derek, who had a face like someone had clubbed him with a crowbar. Derek blinked, actually _started_ , and then came slowly around the SUV. He slowed even more as he got near Stiles, who gave up and grabbed Derek by the jacket. Derek had a determined non-expression as Stiles rubbed his throat, but if he stared any harder at Stiles, his eyes were going to get stuck that way.

Scott whiffed again, and then he handed Stiles a messenger bag. “You coming over for dinner?” he asked. “We got barbecue.”

“Yeah, sure.” Stiles shouldered the bag and then turned to offer his arm to Lydia. “Let me just unpack and check everything, and I’ll be over earlier than that.”

“Great,” Scott said, but he was eyeing the Hales. He helped Stiles shift all the gear from the SUV to the Jeep, and then took the keys. Deucalion was already in the SUV, clucking over the damage. “So…see you later.”

“Excuse me?” Lydia was saying. Oh, apparently Derek wanted to grump his way to shotgun in the Jeep too. Lydia wasn’t having any of it, and she stared Derek into grudgingly getting out. “For such an old bloodline you have the manners of a hobo.”

Derek started to protest, only to be shouldered aside by Peter, who made an elegant little bow. “My apologies, my nephew is a work in progress,” he said. He paused, then sidled closer to Lydia. “May I?”

Lydia studied him for a second, nail tapping her mouth—back to red polish, she must’ve had to rip somebody up—then sighed dramatically and cocked her head. Peter made it a brisk scenting, for all the lead-up, and then pushed Derek forward to do the same.

“You’re so lucky they’re pretty,” Lydia said as she and Stiles strapped into the Jeep. “Jackson’s not happy about giving up the bathroom.”

“Jackson needs to cut down on the number of products he’s got. Honestly, I thought werewolf noses meant more au naturel styling.”

“And he has such a lovely scent anyway. At least, I assume he’s the one who’s all fear and misery,” Peter said.

Lydia didn’t stop scrolling through her phone. “Stiles?”

“I know, right?” Stiles said, starting the Jeep. “It’s like infinite flavors of creep.”

* * *

Stiles would like to say that he got unlucky, but the truth is, he makes a bad call. They’ve discovered the stupid Nemeton (which, if you want to talk about cribbing from pop culture, there are some manga series Stiles would like to bring up) and are dealing with one Jennifer Blake when some hunters ride into town. And okay, nobody’s real big on hunters in Beacon Hills, but there are too many of them to not deal with. They vet for Argent connections and this bunch is clear, and also, more than happy to take on Blake, and sad to say that Scott’s pack could use the extra firepower. Stiles is more than a match for the Nemeton but he doesn’t have enough on top of that to deal with Blake, Scott has never been one for offensive kills, and nobody else in the pack has actually killed someone before. So yeah, they team up.

Unfortunately, the hunters are mercenary as all hell, and while they aren’t allied with the Argents, they also aren’t above knocking out an exhausted Stiles and seeing what he goes for on the market. Turns out, it’s a lot, and Gerard Argent is paying. See, blood mages are rare. It’s not just anybody with a best friend bleeding out that can become one, and the vast majority of them are hermits holed up in impenetrable fortresses.

Blood _magic_ , on the other hand, can be done by just about anyone with a pulse. It’s just the side-effects scale exponentially negative if you’re a norm. So no, Stiles is not the one who shows Gerard how to steal an alpha werewolf’s healing power. Gerard figures that one out all on his lonesome.

But yeah, Stiles is the one who Gerard gets to finetune the binding circles, and to fight down some of the blowback. Not a lot can take Stiles out but Gerard has access to some truly nasty drugs, and a willingness to test whether Stiles’ will or intelligence succumbs first.

(Stiles hates him, _hates_ him, for that. The physical torture, hell, even the emotional torture, it’s old hat. But making Stiles self-discover when he doesn’t want to? The circles of hell are too good.)

Kate’s in on it, would be right up in Stiles’ head if Gerard trusted her to leave the important parts intact. Chris knows about it and disapproves, but from the hazy glimpses Stiles has, the man is unwilling to do anything about it. Victoria shows up once, to yell, weirdly enough, about the mess and then Stiles ends up transferred to a different outpost, which is where Scott and the pack finally catch up to him.

Stiles detoxes to a room awash in blood. It’s ankle-deep in places. Smells like voided bladders and guts. His arm is slung over Scott’s shoulders and his feet are making little waves where they drag through the puddles. He reaches out instinctively—it’s still warm, body temperature, makes it feel weird, not wet at all—and pulls on the blood and his head clears enough for speech. He asks who they got.

None of the ones who mattered, Scott tells him, harsh and thick like Stiles has never heard him. And then Scott stops, presses Stiles to the wall. Tells him sorry, sorry over and over.

It’s not like Stiles ever expected to count on Scott’s promise. The way they grew up, that would’ve been just epic levels of stupid. What mattered, what matters, is that Scott always tries, and he tries _for Stiles_. But yeah, Stiles doesn’t get it right away.

Stiles is out of action for a week. Physically, he’s not too badly off. But he needs some time to put his head back together. He’s done it before (just not this bad), he’s just really tired. Gerard wasn’t that big on caring for the help. He burrows into whatever bed they get him to, and then sleeps and dreams and screams and sleeps. Jackson and Lydia keep him company, he thinks, and sometimes Erica. But not Scott. He misses Scott. Eventually it gets him to wake up again.

Scott was out of town, with Boyd and Isaac. Scott has knocked over another Argent outpost, brought back hard drives and files for Lydia to rummage through. Scott has made sure every pack member’s thoroughly blooded themselves, and has rescued a couple werewolves from the Argents—some still alpha, some not—and has worked that into makeshift mutual help agreements without, or so she swears on her best pumps, even a word from Lydia. Because Scott says they are taking down the whole Argent family if they have to, if that’s what it takes to keep them off Stiles’ back. Scott has fully embraced the idea of a scorched-earth war.

Nobody will tell Stiles what the hell Scott saw, exactly, when he came to get Stiles.

It’s…unnerving, a little bit. This isn’t how the two of them operate, and sure, plenty of times Stiles has thought it would be just so much easier if Scott would loosen up, let go. Play as rough as the other kids. But there’s a reason Scott is Scott, and he’s Stiles.

Yeah. Exactly. It’s unnerving, but Stiles isn’t pulling Scott back. What he does is, he gets back on his feet and gets in the middle of it (because Scott might be newly disencumbered of certain moral restraints, but he’s still not the strategist of the group), and he watches Scott. Who sits up on the roof with Isaac all night when the guy has nightmares, who swaps sick-kid stories with Erica when they’re on recon, who still fumbles when a girl tries to chat him up during a coffee pitstop and them with a bound and gagged hunter in the car trunk. Who sighs at Stiles’ macabre jokes and insists on weekly pack dinners. 

So. Still the same guy. Stiles lies on the half-built roof of the new Hale house and considers it, and when he comes down, he and Scott are like they always were. Just really, really, very much more coming for the Argents.

* * *

Unsurprisingly, Peter and Lydia struck up an instant rapport, based on a mutual love of veiled threats, sarcasm, and chiding Derek for antisocial behavior. They bickered all the way to the Hale house, though Peter faltered once, right as the road bent so that the first glimpse of the roof and siding came through the trees.

“You…” Derek pushed himself up, then opened the door before the Jeep had fully stopped. He took a few steps forward in a rush, and then slowed down to a crawl, staring at the house.

“I didn’t like the layout,” Stiles said, putting the car into park.

Peter’s expression was unreadable, though he was collected enough to offer Lydia a hand—which she refused—as they got out of the car. He swept his gaze over the house, then looked at Stiles. “You replaced the cornerstones.”

“Didn’t like the wards either.” Stiles hauled out his bags and dropped them on the ground, then pulled out his keys. He extracted the needle attachment from the mini multifunction tool hanging off the keyring, poked a fingertip, and let a drop of blood fall. “Okay. You’re set to the wards now. Spoons and all.”

Derek looked sharply at him, then away, jamming fists into his pockets again. He was going to stretch out the leather something awful, at that rate.

Then both he and Peter straightened up, looking off to the left. A couple seconds later, Jackson walked out of the woods. He was in jogging gear, and sweaty, but his hair was suspiciously perfect. “Hey,” he said to Stiles and Lydia. He was deliberately not looking at either of the other werewolves and his back was ramrod-straight. “I just got the text. I thought you weren’t due for another half-hour.”

“Turns out that construction on the county road is all done.” Stiles shoved his keys in his pocket and then lifted his hand.

Jackson blinked hard, then ducked in and nuzzled all over Stiles’ neck like somebody had painted it with bacon fat. “Jesus Christ, Stiles,” he muttered, nosing behind Stiles’ ear. He huffed when Stiles scratched at his nape. “What the fuck, they look like they’ll burn the place down while we sleep.”

“Smooth, Whittemore,” Stiles said, rolling his eyes. He gripped Jackson’s neck hard, till Jackson hissed, and then pushed him off. “Excuse him, he was born with a silver foot in his mouth.”

“Any time you want that amputated,” Derek offered. Flexing claws, too.

Stiles looked at Peter, who shrugged. “I’m afraid I know of no alternative cures.”

“Oh, lord. Do you smell that?” Lydia wrinkled her nose. “The stench of male ego?”

“I know, I think I’m gonna gag. Better go find a toilet,” Stiles said, grabbing his bags. It was a little bit of a juggle, getting them all in one go, but he managed it and then Lydia cleared the way to the front door.

They were still working on decorating the place, and when Stiles had left, the entrance hall had been full of boxes of tiles. All of those were gone now, and the kitchen they passed looked awesome. Lydia preened when Stiles mentioned it and rattled on about marble grades, while Jackson caught up and nearly made Stiles drop all the bags trying to take on some. Jackson intercepted the dropped ones, and kept his mouth shut all the way to the bedroom. Then he flopped into the nearest chair and sulked.

“You reek,” he muttered.

“Yeah, that happens when there’s fucking.” Stiles listened for the sound of the front door shutting, then raised the privacy wards. “So I hear Scott was very impressed with Allison Argent.”

Lydia hopped up on the desk and began texting. “I can’t speak for the battlefield romance that might be going, but her offer is legit. Gerard has a kill order out on her.”

“Seriously?” Stiles kicked all the bags to the side except for the case with the wolf-hide. That one, he set on the desk next to Lydia. He dug out some red cotton cord and worked it into a netting around the center of the case. “What about Chris?”

“Still MIA,” Lydia said. She glanced up from her phone. “I don’t think he’s dead. That would’ve been announced.”

“Okay. How likely is it that Scott’s going to send somebody up to help with Willapa, even though he specifically told me I’m supposed to be the one meeting with Allison next?”

Lydia smirked. “Why do you think Deucalion was trying so hard to get hold of you?”

Stiles sighed. He didn’t know why he bothered unpacking some days. “When are we going?”

“Well, you can have barbecue, and introduce the Hales to the rest of the pack. Allison strikes me as a fast mover. I think we’ll be catching her on the retreat.” Sobering, Lydia set down her phone and folded her arms over her knees. Her concealer was worn a little thin in places, letting the dark circles around her eyes show through. “They’re in better shape than I was expecting.”

“Yeah, not really,” Stiles said. He hopped up on the desk next to Lydia and wrapped his arm around her waist. Took a deep whiff at her hair, silky and sweet-smelling. “Do you know why she chose Willapa? What’s in there?”

She leaned into it and set her head on his shoulder. “No idea,” she said. “Scott was too busy making googly eyes, and then she flipped off the balcony.” She slapped at his knee, half-hearted. “Don’t you be impressed too. It was a little too Wonder Woman. I’m starting to think the version where she’s a sheltered little flower who had no idea her family was full of murderous psychos is the right one.”

“Well, Lyds, I wouldn’t worry on that one, seeing as I’ve got the werewolf version of the Suicide Squad shaping up,” Stiles muttered. He finally looked at Jackson, who hitched up, flushed and bit his lip, and then jerked his chin at Stiles. “Oh, get your fucking ass over here. You want to wipe them off my cock or not?”

Lydia laughed, low and bubbling, and turned more into Stiles’ shoulder so his hand slid off her waist and onto her hip. He ruffled the folds of her dress, then slipped his fingers up under the hem. Jackson finally gave up on trying to act like he had any reluctance about this whatsoever, and dropped onto his hands and knees and into a crawl like his life depended on it. He groaned when Stiles fisted one hand in his hair, pressing his face up against Stiles’ inseam and panting so hard that Stiles could feel the denim getting damp.

Jackson hated it when Stiles fucked outside of the pack. Lydia—didn’t like it either but Stiles was pretty sure that was more about potential outsiders getting in. But Jackson? Jackson just fucking hated. He’d be all over Stiles if Stiles let him. As it was, he’d follow Stiles everywhere, whatever Stiles did to him, till he at least got to blow Stiles. And his mouth was great anyway, but those blowjobs? Those were some of the best, because he was so fucking desperate to prove something, so fucking _starving_ for it, and, well, _fuck_.

The only thing that could possibly make it better was working up Lydia with a couple of fingers at the same time, and then shoving Jackson over to finish her off, so she’d be shaking on Stiles’ shoulder while Stiles came down. Shaking, making these little jagged cries, real and unpolished for once. And both of them too unstrung for once to be looking at Stiles, so he could just look at them in peace.

He let Jackson pillow his head on Stiles’ thigh after, told him to jerk himself off. Jackson did, mouth all swollen and pink against Stiles’ jeans, eyes closed. When he came, he bit at Stiles’ leg, not hard enough to go through the denim, and then sagged forward, apparently happy with the angle his neck was at.

“Did you actually?” Lydia muttered.

Somebody was walking very heavily around the downstairs, as if Stiles hadn’t dropped the equivalent of one and a half jobs on the hardwood floor. The wards would block smell too, but it sounded like they were pacing. For fuck’s sake. “Seriously, Lyds? I can barely deal with your matching sets of designer baggage, and we’re building a whole fucking closet just for that.”

Jackson moved his head so he was looking up at Stiles. His mouth was twitching like he wanted to smile, and as time dragged on and Stiles didn’t push him off, he did let a small, tentative one come out. “You did do something. They smell like—”

“Like they’re eager to get the squishy in the middle of their incestuous manpain duel? Yeah, well.” Stiles shrugged. “Got to keep them from killing me somehow. Now up, I gotta check email before we head over for dinner.”

* * *

Deucalion is one of Scott’s rescues. He’s…less than welcomed by the pack, for obvious reasons. But he’s a beta now, and half-starved and covered in slow-healing scalpel marks, and also somebody has fixed his eyes, whatever that means, so he can have such a terrified look in them that even Lydia feels…not exactly sorry for him, but convinced that he’s not a threat anymore.

Stiles is not so sure. Something about the werewolf is nagging at him, and he can’t put his finger on it and that makes him even warier, since the fuzzy places in his memory tend to have the worst stories. But Scott wants to put Deucalion up till he’s at least healed, and he kills the debate when he says that Deucalion has promised him stories about his mom, intel on the Argents _and_ help training the pack.

It’s sad to say, but the third one is the most helpful to Stiles. He is _not_ the fucking pack mom. And anyway, these days they need fighting experience as much as anything else. Granted, Deucalion’s experience mostly comes from breaking up packs, not uniting them, but between them Stiles and Lydia can filter it. 

So Deucalion gets to stay.

He does, in fact, live up to his word. Everything he says checks out. And he even apologizes to various pack members about the whole Alpha pack business, which…sometimes goes well, sometimes not. But anyway, the thing is, he’s on a redemption kick, and suddenly Scott has a major kink for redemption, and Deucalion goes from whimpering in the spare bedroom to whimpering in Scott’s mouth when the two of them are supposed to be taking out the garbage.

Stiles starts checking for love spells. Scott catches him, and displays an unexpected knowledge of magic by immediately understanding what he’s doing. Stiles and Scott have a fight.

Deucalion tracks Stiles down to the gas station where Stiles is filling up in preparation for a quick out of town trip, and makes a real, genuine, and very persuasive effort to smooth things over. He’s very understanding of Stiles’ fears and drops a lot of references to respecting what Stiles and Scott have gone through, and offers to subject himself to some spells Stiles hasn’t even heard of to make Stiles feel better. Stiles ends up staying put mostly because he really, really wants to know what those spells are.

Not that Deucalion is off the hook. Sure, Stiles makes up with Scott and dials back the investigation, but he’s more convinced than ever that something is up. Because while he might not have the werewolf senses (okay, he does, but he doesn’t lean on Scott enough to develop much interpretative ability), he’s gotten very good at reading body language over the years, on a wide variety of supernatural critters. And at the gas station? Deucalion was scared of him. Not his blood magic, of him—of something he could say or do that wasn’t magical. It’s in the defensive positioning.

For the record, the pack is siding with Stiles on this one. Bad blood, but also probably because Deucalion is just really pathetically clingy, and Scott is sort of, just a little, obsessive with things he cares about, and so everyone’s feeling shut out. Yeah, yeah, Deucalion tries to connect with the other pack members, but outside of training it’s hard to find common ground between teenagers and the once-Alpha of Alphas. Narcissistic quests don’t leave much room for developing hobbies, apparently.

Also, the moment Scott needs something, Deucalion has this really fucking irritating habit of running over to take care of it. Everything else aside, Deucalion is the best hand-to-hand fighter they’ve got, except he totally fucks up group tactics.

Right around then, what’s left of the Hales engage the main Argent forces up in Washington, drawing up most of the affiliated hunters, and Stiles and Scott take the opportunity to go on a demolition run of the Argents’ remaining non-Washington outposts. There aren’t a lot of them left: Peter Hale, in particular, has cut a swath through the junior branches of the family and the Argents, being the old-fashioned type, insist on having a blood relation in charge of any facility. Just aren’t enough cousins to go around.

They’re in the remains of one outpost in southeastern Oregon. Scott is pondering aloud on whether it would make sense to reach out to Talia Hale, and Stiles is pointing out that the odds on Talia even being _alive_ had dropped dramatically last week, after Laura Hale had reportedly contacted an Idaho pack for sanctuary, when _something_ smashes through a concrete-block wall and attempts to jump them.

Deucalion, predictably, saves Scott. And also back-kicks Stiles clear, so he lands against the far wall, winded and not able to do much except watch Deucalion tear out the thing’s throat. They’ve seen Deucalion wolf out plenty of times, but this time something about the angle and the lighting makes things click.

Stiles isn’t stupid enough to bring it up right away. For one, there’s a lot of rubble between them and the exit, and Stiles is running on fumes from eviscerating and shielding and all that jazz, and he’s not going to be the one moving that shit out of the way. For two, he knows Scott. For three, he’s seen Deucalion lie like an angel to other werewolves, and get them to buy it. The whole heart rate thing is overrated, in Stiles’ opinion.

They get home and Stiles does some research into the movements of Deucalion around the time of Scott’s sixteenth birthday. It’s not that hard—Deucalion pretty much sent out the parade wherever he went—and he’s kind of thumping himself for not doing this before. He takes an extra day to arrange it all nice and pretty, and set up a failsafe copy, and then he goes looking.

For Scott, okay, but yeah, Stiles is slipping because of course you look for Scott and you get both of them. And this is how Stiles is up a tree in the preserve while upwind of him Scott and Deucalion snooze on a sunny tussock, all twined together and tooth-achingly sweet and ugh, seriously, Deucalion is having a nightmare. Twitching and whining, and Scott wakes up and then wraps around the other man, rumbling in what all the werewolves hilariously insist is _not_ a purr, and Scott has this quiet, tender look on his face, like it’s just enough to take care of him. 

And suddenly Stiles is remembering the time Scott found a feral dog on the witch’s property and coaxed him in, and fed him up and took care of him, and suffered a whole bunch of bites when they didn’t have access to a vet so Stiles had to concoct an _alternative_ rabies prevention poultice on the fly, and just loved the damn thing anyway. When the witch found it and used it to test a (fatal) cordial, Scott had flipped his shit and then had shut it down just as fast, just for the right to bury the dog’s corpse. And to this day, he still pauses when he sees a ringer on the street.

Stiles considers this and adjusts his plan, and the next time, he catches Deucalion alone in Scott’s house. “You’re the one who bit him,” Stiles says.

Deucalion doesn’t do anything so cliché as to drop the plate he’s holding. His eyes widen and he goes rigid, not even breathing from what Stiles can tell. One, two, and then, without taking his eyes off of Stiles, Deucalion reaches over and sets the plate down as if it would crumple from a breath.

“You know, it almost got him killed? And I don’t mean in the whole you might turn or not way,” Stiles adds. “You know he thinks killing his alpha might be a cure? Of course, you and I both know it’s not, but I haven’t gotten around to telling him yet.”

“I know,” Deucalion says. It’s so soft Stiles almost steps forward to hear better. His mouth barely moves. “He’s—told me. About your history. And how he feels.”

They stare at each other. Deucalion still isn’t moving, not really, but he’s so tense that his muscles are starting to spasm from the effort of holding in place. Tremors are running down his fingers and along his jaw.

“He doesn’t know.” Stiles makes it a statement, not a question, but Deucalion gives him a jerky shake of the head before catching himself. “He didn’t even fucking see you. He had his back to you and you what, couldn’t just shove him out of the way? You had to bite him? What kind of fucking—”

“Please,” Deucalion says, still in that small, airless voice. He swallows and his hands snap down to his sides, convulsing into and out of fists. “Please.”

His throat is working, like there’s a lot more, like there’s some whole spiel about how he’s good for Scott, how he’s mended his ways, how if they just give him a chance. But none of it’s coming out, and his eyes say he knows exactly why. He knows Stiles doesn’t give a shit, and even if Stiles did, nothing he could ever say or do could ever, ever fucking make up the difference. He knows it’s only a matter of time before he loses.

“I’m not going to say anything now,” Stiles finally says. He raises his hand. “But. You push him on mating—he offers it, fine, but you wheedle it out of him, you trick him into it, you do _anything_ to bring it up. Or you go after him to get your alpha status back. Or you sell him out. Or you ever bring less than a hundred and ten percent to the fight and he ends up suffering for it. I will _burn you down._ ”

Deucalion nods curtly. He shivers, then shakes his head and lets out a deep, hoarse breath.

“Also, it’s not a fucking pack of two. Leave your Uberwolf Nietzsche theories at the door,” Stiles says, walking off.

After that, Deucalion starts trying harder to connect with the others. It’s—kind of a train wreck, to be honest, but it’s entertaining and it pretty cements Deucalion as pack _adult_ , which frees up some of Stiles’ time for researching ins to the main Argent compound. And weirdly enough, he and Deucalion get along better. What Stiles was taking for aloofness was, in fact, Deucalion working overtime to not trigger memories, and it had caused a couple miscommunications. Funny that Stiles relates better to people when they’re openly terrified of him.

But anyway. Deucalion hadn’t been talking to him, which meant Deucalion had been sharing all his tactical ideas about the Argents with Scott, which meant Stiles hadn’t heard of at least half of them. Not Scott’s fault; he’s not great at following Stiles on the blood magic stuff. Deucalion is actually fairly well-versed in the field and has a good memory for runes. So when they hear about Talia Hale’s death, and then start seeing some odd maneuvers from the Argents against the remaining Hales, he’s the one who brings up the idea of a blood vendetta. And he’s the one who finds out a pair of Hales have been captured and then sold off.

In retrospect, maybe Deucalion’s not that scared of Stiles.

* * *

“I guess I should raise this before anybody accidentally trips and lets their teeth fall on anybody else’s major arteries,” Stiles said, stuffing more barbecued pork into his mouth. He chewed, chugged some soda, and then pushed himself down the bench so he could put his feet up on the armrest. “Allison Argent’s gone rogue and promised us her family on a platter. They’re genuinely displeased by this, so we’re going on the assumption for now that she can at least get us the last bunch of cousins.”

Peter and Derek had come for the barbecue, but not via Stiles’ Jeep. They had made their way on foot, well after the party had gotten started, and Peter had been entirely too smug about getting one over on the betas (especially Jackson) with his looming out of the woods bullshit. As a result, pretty much everyone else was clustered over by the grill with Scott, except for: Lydia, chilling in the Jacuzzi behind Stiles; Danny, relegated to the back steps so he could still pick up wireless and hacking away on his laptop; and Deucalion, who occasionally wandered over to hand Stiles more soda and make cryptic remarks to Peter about some shit that went down in Mexico years and years ago.

“How nice of her,” Peter said, digging into his own plate. Predictably enough, he was all about free food. “I’ll make it quick in her case.”

Across the yard, Scott’s head snapped up. Behind him, Deucalion was deeply intent on viciously deboning a pork butt with his claws.

“Oh, good God.” Peter looked at Scott, then shook his head. “And here I thought only my family could be so painfully enslaved to their baser instincts.”

“Wait, I think that was actually letting him off the hook?” Stiles said over Derek’s flinch. He drank more soda, dribbled a little and wiped his mouth off with his hand. “But seriously. No kill. Scott’s alpha and he wants to see this play out.”

Derek took a deep breath and retracted his claws from the porch rail. He glanced at Scott, then…came down the steps and around to Stiles’ head’s end of the bench, and dropped into a squat next to it. “Do _you_ think that’s a good idea?” he said. “She was—they kept her out of it, but she was raised with the same beliefs the rest of them were.”

“Scott’s alpha,” Stiles said.

Peter set his plate aside and came to stand behind the bench, settling his hands wide apart on the back so he was bending over Stiles; Derek sucked in air slowly, the edge of a growl in it. Smiling, Peter dipped another inch or so. “Now, Stiles, you did say that he’s not _our_ alpha, and then proved it with your little greeting. And that means we don’t have to do what he says.”

“Yeah, obviously, thanks for the Werewolf 101 refresher.” Stiles checked on Jackson: crushing a beer-can in his hand but looking over Stiles to Lydia for cues. Good. The guy really was almost reliable these days. “But you wanna do what I tell you.”

Peter bent further, so he was nearly horizontal. His fangs were showing. “When it pleases me,” he said, voice rippling, like it was water and something big and dark and nasty was coming up from the deep. “And it doesn’t please me to be at the beck and call of someone who hasn’t lost anything to that miserable family.”

Stiles pushed himself up on his arms. “Fuck you, Scott’s mom died—”

“Well, she wasn’t your mother, was she?” Peter purred. “Oh, believe me, I enjoy the loyalty. Treasure it, really. But Stiles, _Stiles_ , you and I both know that you don’t care. She wasn’t yours.”

“ _Peter_ ,” Derek hissed, about a thousand years too late.

“Stiles?” Scott called.

“And neither are you, you fuck,” Stiles snarled. He grabbed the back of the bench and pushed right into Peter’s space. “Even though that’s what you want. You do, you want it, I don’t even need to borrow Scott’s nose to smell you. You _look_ like it, big bad wolf who’s lost his alpha, oh, but I bet you never liked your sister the way you like me. You like me, you do, you liked my blood in your mouth, my wrist, you’d like it if I held you down and fucked myself on your cock right here, rode you dry. You think you’d be better on top but that’s just because nobody’s ever made you _bow_.”

Wood was splintering. More than one wolf was growling, and Stiles was vaguely aware of Derek up on his feet, warning off somebody. Peter was close to wolfing out himself, eyes punch-blue, lips peeled back from his teeth. “I’ll tear out your throat,” he ground out.

“Only way you’ll get me,” Stiles said, and then let Scott bleed in. He felt the alpha wolf slam through like a tidal wave, on top of his own rage, and for a second it was all he could do to keep steady.

Then he forced it back. He’d handled Scott angrier than this; it was more that his own viciousness liked it so much, made it hard to resist. But he had a schedule to stick to.

Peter had instinctively jerked back, even angry as he was. He still was in disbelief over it and that made it easy to twist out from under him and drop over the arm to stand behind Derek. Derek started to turn and Stiles plastered himself up against the man’s back, draped his arms over and pressed his mouth to Derek’s nape while flesh shifted and shuddered.

“Not mine either, but it’s me, not you,” Stiles murmured. He kissed Derek’s neck again, then bounded off.

Scott was already across the yard, roaring, and pieces of furniture and plates were flying everywhere. Stiles ducked a plate, nodded apologetically at Boyd and Isaac—most likely to get stuck with clean-up—and then slipped down along the privacy bushes and around the side of the house.

Erica and Jackson were sitting in Stiles’ Jeep at the curb. Erica popped the door for Stiles and then scooted over, shaking her head. “Scott is going to let you have it.”

“Yeah, always does,” Stiles said, and turned the ignition key.

* * *

So. The blood bond between him and Scott. It’s complicated.

They have a very good idea of their limits. Or, anyway, that’s what Scott thinks. Truth is, one the first things that Stiles learned was how to wall Scott off. It was out of necessity: Scott was having a tough enough time dealing with his new wolf side, and didn’t need any other things mucking around in his head at the same time.

And it’s still mostly out of necessity. Scott loves him, Stiles knows. Always will. But Scott has his lines in the sand, and you don’t have to _like_ someone you love.

Stiles wants Scott to keep liking him. So sue him.

Anyway. Stiles knows a hell of a lot more about how to use the bond than Scott does, and he doesn’t feel bad about it. And it’s not like Scott really wants to know more than he does. He’s made that clear enough; it’s technically a two-way deal but Scott only ever uses his end to track Stiles down (twice, one of them being the Argent-napping, because Scott is very respectful of others’ boundaries) and, well, the whole Alpha status thing. But that only lasted about up till he’d rescued Stiles. Not all werewolves they recovered from the Argents were sane—or even psychotic but stable, see: Peter Hale—and Scott had been in a hurry to get out of there.

They had a conversation once, where Stiles attempted to suggest blood magicky things Scott could do, and it had derailed into Scott’s horror at all the ways shit could blowback, as if Stiles wouldn’t teach him right. So yeah. Put a nail in it there, probably wasn’t ever coming out.

It’s fine. It’s more than fine, honestly. It says a lot about Scott that he’s totally okay passing up a direct line into Stiles’ thinking, considering the shit Stiles springs on him on a regular basis. And it says a lot more that Scott trusts Stiles enough to never block him, even though ninety-nine percent of the time Scott has no idea what Stiles is going to do with it.

What it says is, Stiles is never going to make it up to him.

* * *

Much as it killed him, Stiles was too done in from his latest trip to handle much of the driving. As soon as they got out of town, he swapped with Erica and curled up with Jackson in the backseat, falling asleep to the sound of Jackson’s grumbling about tin can clown cars.

He knew they’d traded off again when it was Erica waking him for the pitstop, muttering that Scott really wanted to talk to him. She was apologetic but insistent, not that it was her fault that Scott was using the alpha voice. Fucker. Stiles blearily took his phone and texted Scott, and then turned it off. If they needed him, Lydia could text Jackson.

They drove nonstop through Oregon, then pulled into a motel just after crossing the border to get showers and try to get a read on the situation. Obviously, there weren’t a lot of packs in Washington at the moment. But Stiles sold to a lot of other supernatural beings, some of whom were actually benefiting from the lack of werewolves and the distracted hunters, and his local contacts were more than happy to keep tabs on the fighting, so long as they didn’t have to get involved.

Allison had to have swung some of the hunters to her side, and probably a good black market arms dealer. Even if she were Wonder Woman, there was no way she was pulling things off on her own. The Willapa outpost was apparently a crater and Alex Argent was dead, with Kate reported as wounded and fleeing. Stiles gave one of his regulars a fat discount on jackalope antlers in exchange for getting the motel’s address to Allison, and then resigned himself to an angry phone call.

 _“Stiles, why are you being such an asshole?”_ was what Scott opened with. _“I told you, I’m not just taking her at her word—”_

“I’m sorry I used you to get Peter and Derek off my back,” Stiles said.

Scott was quiet for a second. _“Are you sure about them?”_ he finally said. Weirdly, he didn’t sound angry. Just tired and a little bitchy, and under that, concerned.

“They’ll hold off. I know they seem like psychos—”

Jackson snorted into Stiles’ leg.

“—and okay, they are, but Peter can put two and two together and come up with using us to blast in and then going on a revenge-killing spree in our wake. They’ll wait. Just let Lydia run interference, I told her to try and keep them up at the house.” Stiles flicked the top of Jackson’s head with a finger, then shifted down the headboard so he had more of the pillow behind his back. He leaned over Erica and got his glass of water from the bedside table. “And dude, I know about Allison and I said I’d check her out for you, okay? You asked.”

Scott exhaled like he actually wanted to say something instead. _“I hate it when you steamroll me.”_

Shit, Scott wasn’t even mad. He was resigned. Stiles shifted on the bed, glared at Jackson when he looked up, and then let his head fall back against the wall. Fuck, fuck, fuck. “I know. I just…man, we are so close. So close. I get worried.”

 _“Yeah, same here,”_ Scott said, his voice already warming back up. _“Look, tell her thanks for the assist—and shut up, I can hear you, Erica—and just…watch it with the Hales, when you get back.”_

“I just said—”

 _“Not what I’m worried about,”_ Scott snorted. _“Okay. I really, really don’t—want to talk about it, Peter is such a fucking perverted—but just remember, we got you.”_

“Well, yeah,” Stiles said, confused.

Scott sighed at him again, and then hung up after a little more bitching about the Hales—Derek apparently busted a grill—and Stiles marked it down for closer investigation. He’d like to think that Scott was letting him off the hook, but while his bro was forgiving, he wasn’t that quick about it. Something to chew over.

Later on, when he didn’t have an Argent to entertain and two werewolves doing their damnedest to turn him into a giant cuddle bear. He caught some shut-eye for a couple hours, then dragged himself free and got online. Allison had gotten his message and would meet him the next afternoon. She wanted time to make sure her trail was clear, considerate girl that she was.

They didn’t have a safehouse up here, but a local hedgewitch owed Stiles a couple of favors and had a cottage she could lend out. It was cute. Stiles had to pry Erica out of it, literally pry her, to get her to help Jackson scout out the surrounding land.

When Allison showed up, alone as agreed, they were still out there and it was just Allison, Stiles, the charming wicker chairs on the front porch and pitcher of iced tea Stiles made. Allison stopped at the end of the drive, took it in, and then shook her head and stalked up towards him.

She was…she was more wrecked than Stiles had been expecting. Every other member of her family was such a stone-cold hardass, even Chris, the only one who seemed to have some ghost of a conscience. Allison moved like she had training, like she’d been born fighting, and then Stiles got to her face and he knew that long-distance stare, still looking at the point where she’d woken up.

“You’re Stiles?” she said.

Nodding, Stiles gestured to the other chair. She slowly climbed the steps and sat down in it, her eyes automatically scoping out their surroundings. Her posture was perfect for the first couple seconds, but then, after a glance at him, she sighed and collapsed in on herself, hands clasped on her lap, knock-kneed and head lowered.

“What happened?” Stiles asked.

Allison straightened up again. She rubbed her hand over her face, then turned and poured herself a glass of tea. “Willapa’s gone, but you knew that. They weren’t keeping any werewolves there. I have some records in the trunk of my car that I think you’ll—”

“What _happened_ ,” Stiles said. Yeah, he kind of got what Scott meant, but. He wasn’t Scott.

And Allison was bright enough to not need a diagram. “My grandfather was holding me hostage to keep my parents with him. When my mom got killed, my dad tried to get me out. It didn’t work. He tried again and was punished, my grandfather did something—he’s…brainwashed. I think. I got out after that on my own. You get me my father alive and I’ll do whatever you want.”

Stiles got himself his own iced tea and slowly sipped about a third of it. He spotted Erica at the edge of the lawn and pointedly slouched lower in his seat. They could eavesdrop if they wanted, but they had better not ruin the moment. This was getting so much more interesting than he’d expected. “Thrall can’t be that deep yet, if Gerard isn’t comfortable sending Chris back out. You’re never going to make him human again, but you might be able to change him to something else.”

Allison looked at him and her eyes were bright and hopeful, and she actually shook a little, when she reined that in. “Like what?”

“I guess that depends,” Stiles said. “A little on what Gerard actually did, but mostly, whether you just want your father out of the way, or whether you want him to help get to your grandfather.”

“That doesn’t really sound like you want to help him,” Allison said. The hope had faded, but she was still looking at him like he’d opened a door she hadn’t known about.

Stiles shrugged. “You looked me up, didn’t you? I don’t. I want to get your grandfather.”

Allison pressed her lips together. She turned back around and stared out at the thickets encroaching on the yard, turning her glass around and around in her hands.

“I guess you can try to talk to Scott again,” Stiles said. “Work your feminine wiles.”

“I’m not my aunt,” Allison said sharply. She glanced quickly at Stiles, then drew a deep breath and ran one hand through her hair.

Stiles grimaced. “Shit. So you actually do like him.”

“Yeah, well, I did look you up. Both of you.” Allison looked at Stiles again and kept her eyes on him as she finally drank some tea. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, then set her glass down on the table between him. “My dad…he’d want—he wants my grandfather dead, too. He’d help if he could, any way he could. So fine, deal. But one more condition: whatever you do to him, if he asks for it, you’ll let me kill him.”

“Done,” Stiles said, and then smiled at her surprise. “Hey, I’m nasty, but I’m generally not into drawing it out. So, you know where your dad is?”

Allison finally smiled back, and hello, there was the family spirit. “No, but I know who we need to snatch to find out.”

* * *

Here’s the thing. Stiles does a lot of his plotting on the fly. He’s an improviser.

He’s also a manic detail-obsessed geek who will meticulously map out his plans in twenty or more steps. It’s the suspected ADD, which go figure, the blood magic and the secondhand werewolfiness doesn’t touch. He makes it work.

So when he’s considering how, exactly, they’re going to take down Gerard Argent, he knows that it’ll have to be him. It’s his spellwork Gerard is using, and he’s spent hours and hours thinking over the best way to pick it apart, all the factors. The power built up in Gerard at this point, the likelihood that suddenly releasing it might trigger something _else_ nasty (stupid Nemeton), the need to make it completely irreversible by anybody. The chances of causing Gerard excruciating pain while it’s happening. He’s got that worked out, to the point that Peter’s comment about Talia’s curse only requires some cursory research to take into account.

But getting him close enough to Gerard. That’s kind of the thing. He knows Scott is thinking of taking it to Washington, but for once he’s going with the home field advantage and is not in favor. Talia Hale had hit the main Washington compound with all her fury and half a dozen packs at her back, and that attack had killed her and broken her family. Besides, if Gerard dies, then so does everything else, and Gerard can die anywhere.

They’d picked up that Gerard suddenly wanted the remaining Hales alive, but not in time to intercept any. So Stiles had been looking, reluctantly, into offering himself up as bait, because whatever the hell Gerard was doing, he wouldn’t be doing it with the right safety net. Scott hadn’t been thrilled, to say the least, and so he’d jumped all over Deucalion’s rescue idea.

It did make sense. Derek and Peter would at least get Kate’s attention. And even if she’d pissed off her grandfather something good, she was still the one kid he had who agreed with him. He’d come after her, and then they’d get him. That was the idea, more or less.

That’s pretty much out the window at this point.

* * *

Scott was not big on Allison’s suggestion, so Stiles logged into Skype on Allison’s laptop and let her explain it to him. Never let it be said that Stiles wasn’t a good wingman. Or a terrible person.

“Fine, _fine_ ,” Scott snapped. He looked a bit rough, actually. Lydia had said things were quiet in town, but had been kind of sporadic on updates, come to think of it. “Just—be careful. And get back here quick when you’re done. There’s been some buzz about a group of hunters coming up from Mexico.”

“Calaveras. I’m guessing my grandfather offered them first crack at me,” Allison said. Good on her, she was smiling about it, even if it was bitter. “He must still be mad at Aunt Kate.”

Scott bit his lip and looked like he wanted to say something comforting, and Allison visibly softened at the awkward. Stiles rolled his eyes and reached for the laptop. “Yeah, yeah, we’ll make it snappy. God knows Derek and Peter have probably forced Lydia to break a nail, and that’s why she’s keeping it under a text an hour.”

Then he shut the laptop, right on an odd expression Scott was making. He figured it was just Scott not knowing when to exit the conversation.

Sometimes he forgot that _Scott_ could be a pretty terrible person himself.

“You didn’t really think we’d stay there, did you?” Peter said, flicking blood off his claws. “Listening to _McCall_?”

They were in Oregon, standing in the remains of an Argent safehouse. Which had been occupied when Allison had driven them over, by two dead hunters in the kitchen and Peter lounging on the living room couch. “Please tell me Derek and Jackson aren’t pissing over each other on the roof,” Stiles sighed. He slid his bag off his shoulder and onto the floor, next to one dead guy, and then squatted down so he could dig into it. “Allison, Peter. Peter—”

“We’ve been introduced,” Allison said flatly. She tracked Peter with her crossbow as he made a little sitting half-bow, then swung himself to his feet and came around the shattered coffee table. “When did you get here?”

“Oh, a while ago, as you can see.” Peter stopped just short of Stiles’ bag. He had mud crusted all over his shoes. There hadn’t been another car for the last three miles, and there was only one road up to the place. “Plenty of time to sample the famous Argent hospitality. Have a cup of tea and cookies. Swap phone—”

A wolf howled, nearly on top of them, thundering and furious. Stiles cursed and threw himself forward without straightening up, cannonballing straight into Peter’s legs. He felt lines of fire rip down his back, but kept going forward, rolling and then bouncing up.

Hissing, Allison jerked her crossbow sideways in time to put the bolt in the wall and not in Stiles’ face. Stiles grabbed the stock and whirled her around, aiming her at the front door. “Out! Out!” he snapped.

They tumbled out the front door just in time for someone to be thrown off the roof at their feet. Erica arched in pain, her face contorting between forms. Her eyes went to Stiles, then snapped in an arc that started over his head and ended about five yards past her head. The struggling tangle resolved itself into Derek, fully wolfed, bleeding heavily from a bullet hole in his shoulder, rolling back against the house, and Kate Argent, springing into a crouch, electrified light saber thing in hand, facing into the house lights so they could all see the red in her eyes where white should be.

“Well, isn’t this a lovely family reunion,” Peter said. He came out the front door, straightening his suit jacket—why was he wearing a suit? Lydia actually let him waste good clothes?—and then even reached back and pulled the door shut. “I—”

“Stop _speechifying_.” Stiles rubbed his hand over his face, groaning. It went all quiet and he removed his hand to find a crossbow bolt aimed at him.

Kate smiled viciously, unlimbering herself from her crouch. She gave her electric saber thing a twirl as Allison slowly backed towards her, aim never wavering from Stiles. “Oh, it is, isn’t it?” she said. Her smile widened, her teeth white and shining in the dark. “Good girl, Allison. I told my father—I told them all we shouldn’t count you out. Ah ah _ah_ , wolfy. Mind my niece, she’s had a rough month, and your little pet human’s not keyed into the wards here, is he?”

That was to Erica, who’d flipped over but who was about a foot too far to block Allison’s shot. Erica snarled but held still, her claws tearing up strips of the lawn.

“And Derek. Pretty little Derek,” Kate said, turning slightly. She bent down to rest her hands on her knees, blowing Derek a kiss and then laughing when he made an aborted lunge at her. “It wasn’t _that_ bad, was it, baby? I know you missed me. I missed _you_ , and my dad always forgives me in the end. Alwa—”

She toppled over, screeching at the bolt that had embedded itself in her thigh. Allison whipped another bolt into place but stood down when Stiles clucked his tongue.

Stiles got to his feet. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Peter lazing against the porch rail, curiosity apparently getting the better of rage. Derek was just plain confused. So was Erica, but after a look at Stiles, she grinned and bounded away, heading for the treeline. “Jackson went to handle her car,” she called after her. “Trackers and all that! Don’t start the fun without us!”

“I’m sure you turned all that off,” Allison said, glowering at her aunt. “Didn’t want grandfather knowing you were off on your own again, when he specifically told you to drop it. But you can never drop it.”

Half-curled around her wounded leg, Kate snarled at Allison. The way her lips writhed, it wasn’t a hundred percent human: they were too thin, too flexible. “You little _bitch_.”

“I want my father back.” Allison took a step towards Kate, then swore when Kate tossed the electric saber at her. She barely ducked it, then jerked her crossbow back up. Then she lowered it, frowning.

Kate screamed in rage, jerking as the saber rebounded onto her. She threw herself against an invisible barrier, only to shudder and flop bonelessly to the ground. Allison breathed out hard, staring at the other woman for a second longer. Then she turned, only to stop when the end of her crossbow hit something.

“Hang on a sec.” Stiles went back inside, got his bag, and came out. He went over to Allison, and broke the circle around her feet. “Nothing personal, I’m just a failsafe kind of guy.”

Peter laughed. He was downright _beaming_ at Stiles, arms crossed over his chest, eyes twinkling, like some kind of demented parental figure.

“That can’t be mountain ash. I know I’m fine,” Allison said tightly.

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re one hundred percent human.” Stiles offered her an apology shrug. “Failsafe?”

Allison’s eyes narrowed. She opened her mouth—and then shut it, her hands tightening on the crossbow. Her shoulders went back and her head went up.

“That’s not mountain ash either,” Derek said, straightening up from clubbing Kate over the head. He stared down at her limp form, his mouth twitching as his fangs dropped and receded. Then he jerked himself back, body lines just as tight and tense as Allison’s. “So what now?”

“Well, first of all, we get out of here.” Stiles dug into his bag again, and of course now would be when he finally managed to find what he was looking for. He pulled out the leather bundle and then handed it to Allison. “Then we get me some caffeine. And then—”

Frowning, Allison undid the tie around the middle and then unrolled the leather strip, letting it drape over both hands. She looked down at the long, thin needles neatly packed on the strip, and then at her aunt. Then she rolled the strip back up, tied it, and handed it back to Stiles.

“—I guess me and Allison and Kate here are going to have a little party,” Stiles said. “Which _was_ invite-only, you shitty gate-crashers, but I guess somebody’s got to take out the trash. Now help us get her into the car.”

* * *

_Things They Have To Do:_

  * Kill Gerard Argent
  * Kill Kate Argent
  * Kill any other Argent who shows up
  * Keep the pack together and alive



_Things Stiles Has To Do:_

  * See prior list
  * Get rid of Gerard without blowing up the West Coast
  * Get rid of Gerard without starting a new hunter-werewolf war
  * Get rid of Gerard without running the pack out of Beacon Hills
  * Keep Scott an Alpha
  * Keep Derek and Peter and Scott from killing each other
  * Keep Scott from doing anything stupid with/for/about Allison



_Things Stiles Sometimes Thinks Of Doing:_

  * Proposing marriage to Lydia
  * Admitting he kind of likes Jackson
  * Telling Scott to his face that the only reason Stiles came to Beacon Hills was because Scott wanted him to come
  * Telling Scott that he’s glad Scott was taken, because at least they had each other
  * Telling Scott he needs better friends
  * Shoving Derek Hale up against a wall and eating out his mouth till he begs
  * Asking Peter Hale to suck on his wrist again
  * Waking up in a comfortable bed, somewhere safe, with nowhere else to be and nothing else to do, and someone there with him, holding him



_Things Stiles Hasn’t Done In So Long He Can’t Remember:_

  * Gone home
  * Admitted he’s lonely
  * Admitted he’s given up



__

* * *

Kate was tough.

Allison wasn’t so bad herself. She went a little green around the edges when they started with the needles, but her hands didn’t shake when she stabbed her aunt, and she saved her vomiting for their hourly coffee break. And she only lost her temper twice, which was very good, considering the shit that her aunt was spewing out.

She and Stiles were sitting outside the garage where they were holding Kate. The roof creaked and Allison started, then pulled a vicious hand back through her hair, scraping the sweat-soaked strands off her face.

“I could tell them to take a hike,” Stiles said. He swirled his cup, judging how much coffee he had left. “Make another drinks run, _Peter_. I mean, it’s not like we’re not already under pressure, what with our lives being at stake and all, and then needing to work with an audience too. A fucking peanut gallery, even.”

“Well, Stiles, if you’d _allow_ me to lend a hand…” Peter’s voice drifted down. He’d been sitting up there since they started, not eating or drinking. Just soaking in Kate’s cries and groans and rants.

“Like you’d remember to keep her vocal cords intact.” Stiles sipped at his coffee. “You realize you being around just eggs her on. This mutual loathing thing you’ve got, it’s just making her _stronger_.”

Peter didn’t respond. And they didn’t hear anything from the roof, but a couple minutes later, Allison’s car abruptly started up and pulled away from the curb.

“I boosted it from a Walmart parking lot,” Allison said, watching it go. “If he gets arrested, do we have to go get him?”

Stiles laughed. Then he put his cup down and stretched his arms out before him, then over his head. It was taking a little long. The number of hunters Gerard could call on these days was sadly reduced, but he still had enough to make it tricky to get home, if their trail was picked up.

Then again, picking up the trail was only a matter of time, and Oregon versus non-Beacon Hills California was pretty much the same, in terms of odds. If he and Allison sat here for fifteen minutes, it wasn’t going to make that big of a difference.

“Where are…” Allison eventually said.

“Sleeping.” At her look, Stiles laughed again and then gestured to his ears. “Noise-canceling headphones are the best. Look, you wanna take a nap? I can keep going.”

“She’s my aunt,” Allison said, voice hardening. “I want to be there. She’s my family, I should be—it should’ve been my responsibility anyway, cleaning this up.”

“I thought you just wanted your dad.”

Allison looked sharply at him, like Stiles had slapped her or insulted her honor or otherwise mortally injured her. Then she jerked her head away. She put her hand up like she was going to pull out hair, but instead dug the heel of it into her temple, hissing softly under her breath.

Stiles waited, then shrugged and began to get up. About time they started again.

“In a perfect—” Allison swallowed hard, and then her voice came out strong and clear “—in a perfect world, I’d get him out, and we’d clean house and go back to the Code. But there’s been so much blood spilled already, so many deaths. The Code is supposed to tell you what to do when you don’t know what to do, when you’re not sure what’s the right thing to do. But we all know right and wrong here, and we’re doing wrong anyway. So what’s the point? Just—just make it end already.”

When she was done, she took a deep breath, held it, and then let it out very slowly. Her head lifted and she looked out down the driveway. She looked better, steadier. Like she’d at least cleaned herself out.

“C’mere,” Stiles said. He pushed the door open without waiting for her.

Kate was too worn-out to try lunging at them, but she bared her teeth from her place on the concrete floor. They’d chained her down spread-eagled within three separate binding circles, to cover all bases, and Stiles had jammed a tracking chip into her back for good measure. The bloodstain from that had long since merged with the stains from the needles in her knees, undersides of her elbows, hands. She looked like a life-size voodoo doll, all limp and bristling.

Derek was standing by the circle. Given how pale he was, he’d been listening to her almost since Stiles and Allison had stepped out. He had blood dripping from his fists.

“Wow. I mean, wow, seriously, you’re something else. This isn’t even masochism anymore, man, it’s just straight-up lack of a pain threshold, and let me tell you, that is not a good thing. That is totally a clinical disease, Derek, I know because I saw it on _House_ once.” Shaking his head, Stiles moved over for Allison to come in, then shut the door. He leaned back against it and rotated his wrists a few times. Like any other repetitive motion, stabbing could do a number on your joints if you let it. “Did Erica swipe your earplugs? Do I need to yell at her?”

Kate laughed shrilly, and Derek flinched but he kept looking at Stiles. His fists uncurled a little. “What is she?” he asked.

“Uh, yeah, good question.” Stiles pulled his hair back from the wall, flipped it around and sat down on it backwards. He folded his arms over the top. “Well, Katie dear, I’m guessing that your dad went right on dicking around with blood magic as the solution to all his problems. Talia Hale—”

Derek growled, till Allison helpfully picked up her crossbow and hefted it in his direction.

“—might’ve cut him off temporarily, but family’s always better anyway,” Stiles said, grinning. “Isn’t that right?”

“Oh, _yes_ ,” Kate said, grinning right back. She lifted herself, snarled as some of the needles started bleeding afresh, and then licked her lips, her eyes wandering to then to Allison. “Nobody can ever make you feel like them.”

Allison’s lips tightened and her crossbow bobbed, but she held it together.

“Okay, then. Lot of bad touch implications there,” Stiles couldn’t help saying.

“Now that I think about it, Dad never did like you and me going bra-shopping,” Allison said dryly, eyeing her aunt.

“Chris was always such a jealous little boy,” Kate cooed.

“Anyway, what she is.” Stiles scooted his chair forward an inch, letting the screech of its tinny little metal feet jerk Allison out of her impending rage. “He promised you what, superstrength, faster healing? For a pint a month? It’s a shitty bill of goods, Kate. You might feel good now but he’s taking years off your life. And bad as his cancer is, he’s probably chewing through them like candy. I bet you don’t have more than a couple years left.”

“Well, you would know, you’re the one who set him up.” Kate paused dramatically, then smiled widely. “Oh, please, you haven’t told them?”

“What, that you drugged me up to my eyeballs and fucked me around till I bought Gerard some time?” Stiles said. He brought his hand up and examined his nails. “Yeah, of course we’re going to share Argent torture stories. We have a little club, Saturday night, muffin rotation.”

“Stay there,” Allison ordered, leveling her crossbow at Derek again.

Who raised his hands, his disbelieving look almost as good as Peter’s. “I’m _not_ going to blame him for _your_ family.”

“Thanks, Derek, appreciate the assist.” Stiles put his arm down and then rested his chin on top of it. “But here’s the thing, Kate. When daddy turns you into a familiar, daddy doesn’t just let go. Actually, daddy creates a feedback loop that I can hack.”

He snapped his fingers. The innermost circle, the one of Stiles’ own blood, flared scarlet and Kate _shrieked_ , her bones cracking, body thrown up against her chains in an unnatural arch. Allison let out a bitten-off cry and stumbled back, then steadied herself against the wall. She stared at Stiles, her eyes wide, and then she jerked forward.

Except Derek was there, wrestling away the crossbow. He shoved Allison back but didn’t touch her otherwise, eyes half on her, half on the agonized woman on the floor.

“My father!” Allison snapped. “If he’s—are you—”

“Yeah, I can’t separate them remotely. But it’s not going to kill him, okay? It’s not going to kill him, or Gerard, or even her.” Stiles nodded to Kate, who had gone limp, a cracked, wheezing noise very close to a sob coming out of her. “If that was how it worked, this fight would’ve been over a lot sooner.”

“Your _dad_ ,” Kate spat. Blood bubbled from her mouth, blood and something else, some kind of thick black liquid. The disgusting froth slicked down her chin and collected on her throat in a gruesome necklace. “You’re not getting him back. That uptight ass, he always—always thought he was too good for the rest of us. His code, his precious little code, like that counts against family. Family. His own goddamned blood. Well, he’s never getting away from us now.”

Allison slammed up against Derek again, latching onto his shoulder this time so he would have to fling her off. Tears were running down her face, but it was all anger in her eyes. “Where is he? _Where is he?_ What did you do to him? You—you _bitch_ , what did you do—”

“Put him in the ground,” Kate rasped. “Next to his precious wife, that stuck-up little cunt. He’s not dead, but boy, he wishes he was.”

Allison screamed and threw herself forward so hard that she almost took a header over Derek’s shoulder. He caught her at the last minute and hauled her back. Probably planning to drag her into the house, but before he could, she suddenly folded like a wet tissue, sobbing into his shoulder. Which Derek didn’t know how to handle. The does-not-compute practically swallowed his eyes.

Stiles got up from his seat. He went to the garage door, then raised his brow at Peter. “Did you let it get cold?”

Peter simply handed him the tray of cups. When Stiles stepped back, Peter stepped in and past, and for once his brushing up against Stiles didn’t seem deliberate. He strode across the garage, went around the binding circles and then stopped by Kate’s head. “Are you done?” he asked, looking back at Stiles.

Stiles picked out one of the cups, looked at the scribbled writing on the side, and put it back in the tray. He picked up another, checked it and then flicked the plastic tab on the lid up so he could drink it. By then Allison had collected herself enough to get her head off Derek’s shoulder. She looked at Stiles, shaking, and then took an unsteady step away from Derek. Her arms went around herself. She rubbed at her sides like she wanted to peel the skin from them, then took a deep, ragged breath and dropped her arms. She nodded.

“Yeah, I guess we are,” Stiles said. He put the drinks aside and concentrated, and the binding circles opened.

Peter was down on one knee before Kate could even breathe, his claws around her throat. “Family,” he said thoughtfully, flexing his hand. Trickles of blood ran out from under it. “I’d like mine back.”

“I think we all do, but hey.” Kate was rigid against the floor, her eyes wide and darting. They mostly wanted to look at Allison, but Allison wasn’t looking over there anymore. “Not my fault he was so, so ripe for it. He’s always going to remember me, you know. I had him first.”

“Oh, no, I think you’re mistaken there,” Peter said. His voice and face were mild and vaguely disappointed, as if he was being friendly about pointing it out. Then he bent down next to Kate’s head, turning his head to hiss in her ear, and his hand started shaking. It made the blood slicking over her throat ripple. “He’s mine, and all your _filthy_ little memories, all of them, I’ll crush them out of existence if I have to kill him to do it. But first I’ll kill _you_.”

And then he tore her throat out.

Derek was still upright, though a light tap would probably make him fall over, stiff as he was. His eyes tracked Stiles as Stiles came forward, though nothing much seemed to be registering. Peter didn’t notice either, having fallen onto his forearms next to Kate, panting hard, his eyes fixed on the flow of blood from Kate’s neck. Windpipe showing, Stiles noted, and then dropped into a squatting straddle over Kate.

He pulled out the needles from Kate’s knees, since they were the thickest. One went into her ruined throat, the other into her heart. Stiles had to lean over and shove with his weight rather than his arms to get the second one through the breastbone; Kate’s body jiggled a little and Peter jerked, blinked, and then looked at Stiles like he wasn’t quite sure where they were. Ignoring him, Stiles got the needle that last inch, and then reached out and drew a fingertip down Kate’s corpse in between the two needles.

Skin split where it wasn’t already, then peeled back. The yellowish layer of fat right underneath, the milky fascia. Dark red muscles and pale bone. Somebody made a choked-off, groaning noise, and then stopped as the ribcage cracked open for Stiles.

The internal organs were already rotting, damn Gerard. Stiles held his breath and dug past the lungs to the heart, which came out easily, feeling like a half-smashed fruit. He got up off of the body and turned around to drop the heart in a nearby metal can, on top of a small pile of powder. The heart blackened immediately, drying out and curling up at the edges, till it looked like leather. Then it crumbled, too heavy to support its own weight, and eventually it and the powder were indistinguishable.

Stiles turned back, then stopped. Peter was on his knees, almost on top of Stiles’ feet, and when Stiles made to pull away, Peter leaned forward so it’d take a razor blade to separate them. His eyes were closed, his expression oddly dreamy. He angled his head towards Stiles’ bloody hand, breathing in deeply, and then slowly turned so his sniffing arced across Stiles’ side and stomach. His chin went up and he was offering his whole throat when Stiles grabbed his hair.

Peter’s breath hitched. Then turned into a snarl when Stiles just used his grip to maneuver clear of him. He opened his eyes and for a second he was totally going to rip in—and then he pulled back his shoulders. Smiled contemptuously, looking Stiles up and down. “Thank you, Stiles,” he said, and got up and went into the house.

Allison had been hanging on for that, apparently, because she promptly booked it out the garage door and started pacing the driveway. Stiles sighed, just caught himself from wiping his bloody hands on his jeans, and then looked at Derek. “If you’re not going to help here, at least go…whatever with your uncle. Last thing I need is him ruining our getaway.”

Derek snorted and glanced at the house door. Then he looked at Kate, his mouth twisting. He shifted back and forth on his feet, grimaced again and looked up at Stiles. “I don’t…what do I do?”

Stiles looked at him again, more closely. Then rolled his eyes and moved over to dig out his bucket of cleaning supplies. “Look, just go tail Peter. I can handle it here.”

“No,” Derek said sharply. He took a step towards Stiles, then shook himself. “No, look, just tell me—”

“You’re a mess, dude.” Stiles emptied out the bucket and squirted some cleaning solution into it. He searched around for the tap, found it and banged the bucket underneath to fill up. “Not that I blame you, what with that back there, and look, seriously, you really think it’s a good idea to go from psycho-bitch to psycho-possessive uncle? Okay, Peter makes it look pretty hot, but still. Totally going to fridge you someday.”

“He’s not going to…whatever you mean.” Derek started to rub his face, realized his palm was all sticky with his own blood, and scowled at his hand. Then he made a face like he kind of got how seriously sad it all was, and for a second he actually looked like he might laugh. He shook himself instead. “I’d stop him first. I know what you think, but I don’t roll over for him.”

Stiles paused halfway through washing off his hands. “Not what it’s looked like.”

“Well, I have tried to kill him too,” Derek said. He did laugh then, under his breath and dark. He came over to stand on the other side of the tap, poking at the bottles of cleaner with his foot. “She’s not coming back, right?”

“Nope.” There weren’t any towels—fucking Erica always left those off when she did the shopping—so Stiles had to use his jeans. Or okay, Derek’s shirt, which Derek was just going to pull off and hold out. He blinked, shrugged, and took it, and took the look while he was at it.

Derek sank down next to Stiles, and man, the way his thigh muscles bunched under his pants. He turned the tap back in and stuck his hands under it, still looking at Stiles. “And Gerard’s weaker now?”

“Yep.” Stiles wasn’t exactly sure what to do with Derek’s shirt, so he dropped it on Derek’s foot.

“Good,” Derek said, and then he was crowding up to Stiles. Their knees bumped and Derek did some illegal swivel with his hips to slip his knee past Stiles’, so he was actually fucking in between Stiles’ legs. He grunted at the slap of Stiles’ hands against his shoulder and chest, then tilted his head so he was looking slightly upwards. He was confused, clearly, but not put off. “Why are you holding back?”

“Maybe I don’t feel like it? You’re not that mindblowing,” Stiles said.

Derek stared at him, then ducked his head more, so Stiles actually had to yank his hair to keep from being scented. “You’re a good liar,” Derek observed. “Half the time I can’t hear a change in your heartbeat.”

“You’re fucking your uncle,” Stiles said.

“Yeah.” Derek shrugged. “Peter’s never going to get over what I did with Kate, but he’s always insisted that I’m a Hale, no matter what the hell any of us do. You ever figure him out, let me know.”

“Oh, my God, you are _such_ a beta,” Stiles muttered. He pushed experimentally at Derek. Nothing moved. “We need to clean. If you’re just going to creep on me, I’ll get Jackson to help me.”

The corner of Derek’s mouth lifted. He stretched closer to Stiles, breath whiffing the side of Stiles’ face, and then he sat back. Considered the wet wad that was his shirt, then pushed it aside with his foot. He got the bucket handle up and swished the bucket to mix the solution, then looked inquiringly at Stiles.

Oh, fuck his life. Stiles rolled his eyes and threw a pair of gloves at Derek, then started yanking on his own. He was going to kill Scott. And Lydia. At least give him some warning, Jesus.

* * *

Scott worries about Stiles.

Yeah, it’s stupid. Stiles is the strongest, smartest, most survivor-y person he knows. He’s saved their asses so much that Scott has stopped counting, and Scott knows that’s probably only a little fraction of the number of times that Stiles has saved them. So Scott isn’t the genius, and he’s not as observant as he could be, and half the times that Stiles has saved them, it’s because Scott was distracted by something stupid. Okay. He knows he’s not exactly the best friend that Stiles could have had—he tries, damn it—and he knows he’s probably going to keep accidentally taking Stiles for granted. Truth is, they’ve spent so much time living in each other’s pockets that some of that is because he’s not entirely sure Stiles would know what to do if Scott started redrawing their lines. Stiles just is so goddamned _good_ at knowing what Scott needs, the way that they are right now. And Stiles, as he’s made it clear often enough, wants to do that. The least Scott can do is let him.

So as things are, Scott thinks about what they want and Stiles thinks about how to get it. It works for them, and things seem pretty good, as their lives go. Sure, they’ve just jumped into the middle of most violent hunter-werewolf war since they stopped hanging people for stealing cows, but they have their own place, their own _town_ , and they have a pack. They’re actually winning their battles. Stiles has a rock-solid plan and everyone seems convinced it’s going to end with them being the last ones standing.

Which basically is why Scott is worrying. Because he _knows_ Stiles, okay, and maybe he doesn’t always pay attention when he should be, but he’s paying attention now and Stiles is too…Stiles _cares_. Stiles really, really fucking cares about winning this.

Scott wishes he could talk to somebody about this, get a second opinion, see if he’s just seeing things or if it’s real. But he can’t, because who the hell is going to understand? ‘Sorry, it’s just I think Stiles is too deeply invested in killing the assholes who snatched him and fucked him over and replayed our entire shitty childhood except I wasn’t there this time?’ Yeah, people are going to get that. Even Deucalion—who Scott sometimes thinks, late at night, when he’s standing in his mother’s house (he left her, left her, it’s hers and she gave it to him but it’s still hers), might be the closest thing he has to happiness—would never get it. Because none of them grew up with Stiles, and none of them have seen Stiles this way before.

Stiles doesn’t get attached. He _takes_ , sure. He and Scott have disagreements about it sometimes, because you don’t have to be the other side to win, but that’s what he does. He goes into a situation and he takes what he needs and he makes it his. But he’s not attached to it. He doesn’t _care_ about it. Doesn’t look like he’ll rip out his own veins to get it done, doesn’t look like he’d sell his own soul for it and be completely satisfied with the bargain.

He’s the one with a sense of self-preservation. For God’s sake.

So okay, Scott is being a little bit of a hypocrite here because God knows he’s made the argument plenty of times that Stiles should (as cliché as it is) find something or someone to love. They can afford to now, and come on, are they really going to let their childhood take that away from them, too? That’s just flat-out surrendering and neither of them do that. 

(Scott doesn’t kid himself that he’s enough for Stiles. And hey, he doesn’t want to be. His buddy deserves a hell of a lot more than that.)

But he wants Stiles to be happy too, okay? And Stiles isn’t happy. That’s the thing. When he cares, when something gets under his skin and really makes him feel, he just ends up throwing blood at it. His blood. Started even before Scott was bitten and Stiles got blood magic that _literally_ lets him do that. And, well, now with the blood magic, well, Stiles can level half the state with his caring. He can and he will, and Scott will be _damned_ if he ever sees Stiles bleed like that again. Coldblooded killing is never going to be Scott’s thing but he’ll do it when he has to, do it for this.

So yeah. Scott worries.

* * *

Victoria Argent was buried on a parched, windswept patch of land in eastern Washington. Her body, on the other hand, and according to Allison, was currently located in northern California, adjacent to Beacon Hills, because Gerard Argent was savvy enough to use a ley line running through the site of a historical bloodbath and ballsy enough to bet that his enemies weren’t going to think of ranging that far from the Washington battlefields. It wasn’t sneaking her under the Nemeton when they weren’t looking, but it was close enough that Stiles was—not allowed to drive because when he drove angry their meat freezers piled up with roadkill deer. 

“Every time I think that Gerard Argent can’t be more of a dick, I am proven wrong,” Stiles muttered. “It’s like he’s the male version of Diana of Ephesus, you know, the one with the many breasts? Except they’re all _dicks_. Like a breastplate of dangling ding-dongs.”

Jackson made a discreet choking noise, then coughed into his shoulder. He was driving because the Jeep wasn’t that roomy and Peter had ditched Allison’s car and come back with an expensive sports car that fit all of three people and no gear. Erica and Peter were riding with Allison with the understanding that if they showed up with two out of three or less, Stiles would take up necromancy again. So the gear was now all in the Jeep, they weren’t letting Stiles drive and he wasn’t letting Derek drive it, considering what the guy had done to Stiles’ safehouse furniture.

 _“It’s outside of your wards?”_ Scott offered. _“You can’t cover the entire state, Stiles. And technically it’s another pack’s territory anyway, so it’s their Nemeton.”_

“It’s _one_ asshole,” Stiles snapped.

Scott sighed. _“Well, look, Deuc and I got hold of Alpha Llorona, and she’s cool with us doing a little digging. Says they haven’t been able to patrol that end of their lands for a couple months now, lost too many of their people in Alpha Hale’s Washington strike.”_

The Jeep went over a rough spot. Stiles automatically jammed his feet into the floor and rode the jolt. His head slid up the seat and he happened to look in the rearview mirror, and Derek was staring back at him. But just staring. 

_“Nemeton itself is supposed to be deader than dead. They said they shut it down a good twenty years ago,”_ Scott added.

“Yeah, well, still. Wait till I get there. If Allison gets there first, you can take her out for dinner or something, but wait for me.” Stiles ended the call and shoved his phone back into his pocket. Then he pulled it back out. He tried to call Lydia, but she didn’t pick up.

“You’re both out of town, she’s going to be schmoozing with that deputy,” Jackson reminded him. “You could try calling the precinct.”

“Nah.” Stiles texted a couple of his contacts in Washington. None of them replied immediately. He checked his old messages.

“Gerard has to already be on the move. If he could feel what you were doing to Kate, he knows she’s dead and he knows you’re going for Chris next.” Derek frowned at Stiles’ little jerk and flail from his way-too-close perch over Stiles’ shoulder, and kept frowning while his hand shot up and grabbed Jackson’s wrist. He squeezed it till Jackson swore, then let go.

Stiles smacked Derek’s cheek. “No fighting in the car, asshole. And by that, I mean both of you.”

“Fucking barbarian,” Jackson muttered. He scrunched himself into the corner of his seat and jerked the car around the turn.

“You had better not have just ventilated my roof with your claws,” Stiles said, steadying himself.

Derek took his hand down from where he’d plastered it to the ceiling and showed blunt nails. Then he resumed looming over Stiles. “It’s a race at this point,” he said. “We’ll get to Chris first, but he could get to Beacon Hills before we do.”

“Thank you, I hadn’t thought of that,” Stiles said.

“Can’t you just kill him through Chris?” Derek pressed on. “Or what, it doesn’t work like that?”

Jackson reached back and got hold of Derek’s shoulder. “Would you just sit the fuck back?”

Derek turned his head and looked at Jackson’s hand. Looked at it shoving, while he didn’t move an inch. “McCall’s house is a fallback, not where you actually want the fight. If you were done with—” his voice slowed ever so slightly “—my old house, it would—”

“Gerard is definitely coming for us, but if we get to Chris first, he’ll have to pull over and make sure his guts aren’t going to fall out of his mouth,” Stiles said, rolling his eyes. “He also has to go through the territories of six packs, and maybe they’re all suffering a little in terms of numbers, but they’re also all _highly motivated_ to fuck around with him, say, with fallen trees on the roads and slashed tires and booking up all the local motels. I’m not big on the fact that we’ve temporarily lost track of him, but he was in Washington when we got Kate. He still has to drive like the rest of us.”

“I know I’m going to regret asking this, but he can’t fly?” Jackson said.

“Not healthy enough. Though the thought of him undergoing explosive decompression is going to keep me warm tonight, thanks, Jackson. I bet his insides look just like mole sauce when they’re splattered at ten thousand feet.” Stiles grinned, which made Jackson grimace and look away—and catch Derek’s eye, and aww. “You’re bonding! That was a bonding moment, guys! And here I thought you were gearing up to duel over my hand or whatever.”

Of all things, this was what made Derek look uncomfortable. “That’s not how—look, sorry about before. I know he has priority.”

Stiles reached over and yanked on Jackson’s arm. “Watch the road, dumbass,” he said. He checked his phone one last time, then jerked his hood over his head and curled up best he could on his seat. “Wake me up when we’re there, or if my phone goes off—you know which tones—or if somebody rams us off the road. Otherwise, anybody shaking me is going to lose some fingers.”

Derek sucked in his breath like he was going to say something.

“Hey, _shut up_ ,” Jackson hissed. And Jackson’s tone was entirely too—something at Derek, which Stiles didn’t want to parse.

It did get Derek to swallow whatever bone-headed bullshit he’d been about to come up with. Stiles was used to the bump ‘n grind of the Jeep’s total shit shock absorbers, and was lulled to sleep shortly afterward. Gutting people, even if they were already dead, did kind of take it out of you.

Jackson was poking Stiles awake. “You were out,” he said immediately, as if something had gone wrong.

Stiles bolted upright, only Jackson’s werewolf reflexes keeping them from bashing heads, and then climbed over him and out of the Jeep while Jackson was still bitching. They were in a forest, and Scott’s car was parked a couple of yards away, and Stiles could hear yelling. Specifically, Allison. Fuck.

“What did I say what did I say _what did I say_!” Stiles skidded into the clearing at a dead run, then went ass over head when he tried to _not_ fall into the giant open root cellar.

Somebody grabbed his arm and pulled him to safety. Then patted down his back or tugged his hoodie or something, Stiles wasn’t really paying that much attention. Allison was kneeling besides a filthy, buck-naked, spasming man, shaking him by the shoulders and screaming bloody murder. Scott was on the man’s other side, also shaking—no, holding him back, because he was doing his damnedest to rip Allison’s throat out with his teeth. Boyd was on Scott’s side, further down and twisting the man’s arms behind his back. Two werewolves and the guy was still fighting.

The guy was Chris Argent, of course. Stiles looked around quickly, spotted Peter smirking beside the cellar doors. He hopped over, punched Peter in the face, and then grabbed Peter’s hand as it went up. Peter let out just enough claw for Stiles to use on his forearm. He whirled, dodging somebody going at him, and shoved Boyd out of the way and rammed his bleeding arm into Chris’ mouth.

Chris whipped his arms around and grabbed Stiles by the side and shoulder. It fucking _hurt_ —Chris’ nails looked like they’d been growing for weeks, and he was gnawing into Stiles’ arm, like jerky—and then Chris’ eyes rolled up and his hands dropped. His whites were bright red, just like Kate’s, but now they glazed completely scarlet, his irises and pupils disappearing.

“Move over, I need room,” Stiles snapped, elbowing with his free arm. “Gimme a knife.”

He got Chris by the shoulder and hauled the man over, enough so that he could get at the back of Chris’ neck. Scott handed him a knife and Stiles slashed the runes down Chris’ spine, hairline to about the middle of the shoulderblades, using his elbow to keep Chris from rolling back over. He tossed the knife aside and looked up at Scott—Allison was hanging onto Scott’s back, just a pale blob of a face to Stiles’ hazing eyes—who nodded. Stiles pulled on their bond, popped claws, and lifted his arm so Chris fell onto his back. He sat up and reached down and centered his fingers around Chris’ heart, and then punched in.

Some time later, Stiles raised his head from the gore smeared all over Chris’ chest. Chris stared at him, whites of his eyes actually white, irises and pupils back. He looked like shit. “Don’t call me master, it’s creepy,” Stiles said, and then passed out from the blood loss.

* * *

When we’re done. When we’re done with Argent. When he’s dead, when they’re all out of our hair. When it’s over. The others like to play that game, like this is just some class where they’ve got to fight through the semester and then they’re home free.

It’s pretty harmless, Stiles guesses. He plays along sometimes, talks about Comic-Con and also Rou-Con (werewolves, New Orléans, yessir). Agrees to think about it when Lydia shoves college brochures at him. Hell, he even fills out a couple. His personal statement is a masterpiece of fiction. He draws the line at the financial aid forms, because that is a pain in the ass his money-laundering contacts do not need, but he knows Lydia is plotting with their accountant behind his back. It’s okay. Why not. Who knows.

Yeah, no, he’s not serious.

* * *

Someone was in his bed and Stiles didn’t know who it was. Jackson was instantly recognizable because he whined even in his sleep, and Lydia because of her perfume.

“It’s me,” said Derek.

Stiles relaxed the wards. He opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling—Hale house—and then at the clock. “This is nonconsensual snuggling.”

“I’m not touching you,” Derek said.

He wasn’t. It was a big bed, and Derek was bundled up at one edge, with fuck, actual bedhead. The clock only gave the time of day so Stiles resigned himself to crawling to the opposite edge of the bed to get his phone off the table. Okay. Day and a half. “Nonconsensual creeping—oh, shit, right. You.”

Chris Argent looked up at him from a sleeping bag on the floor. Showered and shaved, and carrying the vague air of being gutted and hung out to dry and still having to walk around afterward. “Stilinski,” Chris said. “What do you want?”

“A lot of things, but sadly, Santa Claus isn’t real, you know.” Stiles did a little triage on his phone, then tried to sit up. Then put his head back down on the pillow. “They dug you up before I got there, and your dad was trying to puppetmaster you—”

“You weren’t waking up.” Derek sounded like he was getting off the bed. His feet thumped down, and then he was opening and closing some drawers, and flipping around clothing. “We tried. You were out, so we were going to wait, but Chris started screaming and Peter said Gerard was going to kill Chris.”

“And said we’d better dig him up?” Stiles muttered.

Derek came back to sit on the bed, on Stiles’ side. “No, he said he’d go wake you up and risk the limb, but Allison went for the doors before we could stop her. And once you open those, you can’t—really stop halfway through.”

“Yeah, I know, with the Cthulhu roots and all.” Stiles tried turning onto his side. His head still spun, but not as bad. Maybe he could sidewinder his way out of the room. “Okay. So it’s actually not Peter’s fault for once. He does know I’m not going to apologize for punching him, right?”

“I think he’s more offended by you sticking your wrist in my mouth,” Chris said. He had pulled himself into a sitting position on the sleeping bag. Someone had given him sweats but no top, and the scars from Stiles’ claws shone faintly, like somebody had dotted his chest with silver. “Was he courting you?”

“Should you be in this conversation?” Derek said. His popped claws said no.

Chris’ eyebrows said Derek could go fuck a tree. “I’m his familiar, Hale.”

“I need to pee,” Stiles announced, and just went for it.

He sort of made the first step, but by the second he was kind of okay with Chris Argent grabbing him by the waist. Well, not okay with it, but his right knee was saying it was either the floor or take Chris’ shoulder, and Stiles went with the shoulder, to the tune of much macho growling.

“Go get me water and Lydia,” Stiles said, slumping forward. He felt Chris’ center of gravity shift and Chris cursed him in a voice almost as snarly as Derek’s, but it kept them going towards the bathroom.

“What do you want?” Chris said once they’d gotten there.

To piss in peace, without somebody staring at him, bro code much? Though then Stiles actually looked at the man, and Chris was—he was not as calm as he was making out. Sure, his arms were folded all badass over his chest, but his fingers were making white streaks where they dug into his biceps, and he was more tilting himself against the door than leaning. And generally he just looked like Allison sitting on a step and metaphorically disemboweling herself. Considering what their family had done to Stiles, it was really criminal how genuinely fucking bad they seemed to feel about it.

Like he was reading Stiles’ mind, Chris shifted uneasily against the door. “I should have—”

“But you didn’t, and now I have a massive vengeance hard-on for your dad.” Stiles finally relaxed enough to do his business. He hit the toilet lever with his elbow and then used his wobbly balance to swing him to the sink. Sort of into it, but oh, well, he didn’t need that hip anyway. “For the record, making you _my_ familiar wasn’t exactly what I was thinking of doing. But it’s what we’re stuck with, so—Gerard can’t draw on you now, but the two of you still have a link, and also he’s gonna want you back _bad_. I’m gonna make up a cordial, and you’re going to drink it, and then I’m gonna give you back to him and that cordial’s going to be like a suitcase bomb. You on board?”

Chris took a sharp breath, like he was going to reply, and then pressed his lips together.

“You might survive,” Stiles added. He turned off the tap, then leaned over the sink and looked at himself in the mirror. So he looked pretty bad himself. He didn’t usually pull this many high-grade workings in the same week, and also, blood replenishers—magical or not—only went so far. Replacing the physical components wasn’t the same as building up the power. “He’s storing a lot of power in him, all those alphas—” Chris actually flinched “—and it’ll come back to you when he dies. That’s the main drawing point of a familiar, being an extra reservoir.”

“But it’s backlash all the same,” Chris said.

“Well, if it gets bad, I promised Allison that she could be the one to kill you.” Stiles watched Chris go pale in the mirror. “I showed her how with Kate. Admittedly, I haven’t known her long, but I think she’ll do it right.”

Stiles finished washing up. He ran an absent hand through his hair, then looked at his forearm. Kind of bad, might scar a little, even with magic to help out. Then he heard someone coming up the stairs, and looked out the door just in time to see Derek scowling at a glass of water and Lydia bending over the rail to yell at someone to remember the witch hazel.

“Fine,” Chris said, low and tight. “I’ll do it.”

“Great. Now why aren’t you bothering her? Shouldn’t you be having some kind of joyful reunion?” Stiles said. He waved for Chris to go ahead of him, then rolled his eyes when Chris instead stepped forward and heaved Stiles’ arm over his shoulders. “Awesome, of course even my familiars have to be total disobedient assholes.”

“What?” Derek snapped, coming up the hall.

“Water! Thank you, Derek!” Stiles chirped. He lurched out of Chris’ grip and grabbed the glass, slurping it down in one go.

Wild-eyed and gaping, Derek stood there, his hand twitching faintly around a phantom glass. Then he stumbled sideways, even werewolf reflexes not saving him from a determined Lydia.

“What the _hell_ , you let him out of bed?” she demanded, dragging Stiles back into the bedroom. “What part of he needs bedrest do you _not understand_?”

Stiles tried to not bang the glass into her as he fumbled towards the bed, and for his pains managed to get his head smooshed into her cleavage. “Oh, hey, I missed you. Both of you.”

Lydia looked down at him, huffed, and then allowed them to stay as they’d fallen on the bed, him sprawled mostly on her. She had a handful of papers and used his back to smooth them out. “Goddamn it, Stiles,” she sighed, and then she looked over his head. “Mr. Argent, I think it might interest you to know that Scott has offered to show your daughter the blackberry bushes out back.”

“Fuck your trauma, man, you’re not dead yet and your baby needs a chaperone,” Stiles added. He nestled on Lydia’s breasts for a moment. “Not that Scott’s the kind to—”

“He’s gone,” Derek said dryly.

Lydia breathed heavily, which did awesome things to her cleavage and Stiles’ face. Then she put her hand on his head and shoved him so he was on her belly instead—which was nice, of course, but not the same—and tapped the papers impatiently against the bed. “It’s about the Hales, he might as well.”

Stiles made a face, but waved Derek over. “Okay, what? I thought I was on bedrest.”

Derek took Stiles’ empty glass and perched on the far side of the bed, like it was taking all he had to keep off his feet. “Is this about the bones?” he said.

“They buried someone else’s bones with Chris and Victoria,” Lydia explained. She tucked her legs up under Stiles and wrapped her arm over his back. “We…brought them back. Peter—”

“Peter said they smelled like family,” Derek said tightly. “He wasn’t sure who. They’d been cleaned. Chris didn’t know either. Gerard took a—he took a lot of trophies.”

Lydia took a deep breath. She relaxed when Stiles pushed out his hand and wrapped it around her wrist. “I dug through the papers you and Allison brought back, and it’s probably Laura.”

Derek…jerked his head away and got a couple inches off the bed. He stopped, then threw himself back down with a snarl, facing out the window. His shoulders hunched, and then his head dropped so he could clamp his hands around the back of it.

“Told Peter, too,” Lydia said quietly to Stiles. “He smiled and thanked me and then went down to the basement and he’s been there for a few hours.”

Stiles nodded. He took the papers when Lydia tipped them at him, then rolled off her. Then he rolled back once she got up, splaying out on his stomach. He listened to her walk out.

The papers, when he looked at them, were Lydia’s usual terse yet excellent summaries of her findings. He skimmed the first couple bullet points and then put them on the bedside table for later. His body felt like it was made of paper and ache; he tried to sink into the wards because that was usually comforting, a good long stretch without having to actually move, but he had to pull out almost immediately due to the spinning head.

There was a flare of concern on the periphery of his consciousness: Chris. Fuck, right, he wasn’t even shielding properly. He _had_ had familiars before, but just for a matter of hours, long enough to have them get him through security, and then he’d killed them. It might be hypocritical of him, what with the enslaved childhood, but while he’d use people, he kept it to life or death situations. That was still technically true with Chris but Stiles was going to have to keep him around for a lot longer than a couple hours. Great.

“Why can’t we turn into alphas any more?” Derek suddenly asked, his voice hoarse. “You know, they tested it. Before they passed us on.”

Stiles looked at the door. Then he turned his head and looked at Derek, and rolled his eyes at himself. “Was Laura dead before or after that?”

Derek turned sharply around. He put his hand down like he was going to cross the space between them, then stared at his fingers flexing against the sheets. “Peter and I went up against some rogue alphas they’d caught, and won. Then got turned into betas again. Then Peter—they had us fighting separately, but then they paired us up and I was still mad about him trying to kill her. I went after him, and he…let me. They pulled us apart and I went back to the cage and he went to the medical ward.”

“Where he broke out,” Stiles guessed. “Played more wounded than he was.”

That was definitely family pride showing on Derek’s face, pride and chagrin and guilt and resentment. “He didn’t run out right away,” Derek said. “He went to go find Laura. She was in medical too and he smelled her out. Maybe to try and kill her again, but anyway, Gerard was there and he killed her in front of Peter. And then after that, Peter and I had another cage fight, in pairs, and we killed the alphas in there with us but nothing happened.”

Derek’s claws came out, then retreated. He lifted his hand from the bed and looked at it almost calmly. And then he curled it into a fist, and since blood started coming from between his fingers, he’d popped his claws again.

“What was with the clothes you were wearing when I got you?” Stiles asked. He made his eyes wide and innocent when Derek looked at him. “What? You looked like hell, but there was no way those clothes went through that many fights.”

For a second Derek was going to tear out Stiles’ throat. Then he jerked back. His fist uncurled. He stared at Stiles, then shook his head. “You are so…they stripped us when they caught us, and then, I don’t know, still had our clothes. Gave ‘em back because the hunters who bought us didn’t want to haul around naked men.”

“Wow. You’d think that you’re going to do the whole trafficking bit, you wouldn’t have hang-ups about body modesty,” Stiles said. He pushed himself up on his arms and then leaned his head on one arm to steady it. “Okay. So Laura was the born alpha. My guess is, Talia’s curse got in the way. Peter said she made it so Gerard could only use Hale werewolves. Well, Laura was alpha and she died without passing her status on, so officially, your line ended. No more Hales after her and Gerard is cut off.”

“Makes sense,” Derek said after a second. He frowned at his hand, like it was a surprise it was bloody. Then he licked it. Just licked up all the blood, and then rubbed the spit off on his knee, like that was just something you did.

Born wolf, Stiles belatedly remembered. Deucalion did that too, though he normally wasn’t so goddamn blatant about it.

Derek glanced at him, then twisted around and was stretched out on the bed, on his belly just like Stiles, his chin disappearing into the comforter. His eyes were half-lidded. “You should go back to sleep,” he said. “You look like crap.”

“You look like you’re going to creep on me while I’m sleeping,” Stiles said.

“I’ll stay on this side. Jackson’s not going to be back for a couple hours. Said he has to make up classes.” Derek actually nuzzled the bed, then shifted his hips from side to side, like he was burrowing out a…a blanket nest or something. His eyes closed almost completely. “I could be a good beta,” he said, in the kind of tone you used to talk to yourself. “You know that.”

“I’m sleeping,” Stiles said, and stuck his head under the pillow.

* * *

Sometimes, when he’s been researching too long, he wonders if he’ll meet his parents when he dies.

He is not, absolutely not, thinking about them. But blood magic is kissing cousins with necromancy in general, and every single resource on working with the dead starts with how to contact close relatives. As if that’s all anybody wants to do. Ask great-aunt Gertrude why the hell she left the farm to Jed.

So family being the closest to you, okay, Stiles understands that. And family also being the most likely to slip through the cracks and fuck you with their unfinished business, that too. But what he doesn’t understand (can’t understand) is why anyone cares beyond making them fuck off. It’s not his upbringing either. He’s fucked up and even he realizes you need to close the loop at some point. Move on, live your own life, don’t let those who’ve come before you define you.

But it keeps coming up, and he doesn’t think of them but all his research and he still doesn’t know for sure what might be waiting for him. Or who. 

(He went through a phase where he wanted his mother to be there. And one where he figured he wouldn’t be able to deal with it. And one where he thought it’d be worse for _her_ if she didn’t show.)

He just likes to be prepared, okay? Even when he’s been building his Denial Castle for the past, oh, decade. Especially if he’s going to be dead and there’s nowhere left to go.

(He knows his mother died, thanks to Scott’s mom’s notes. He doesn’t think about his father but once, drunk off his ass, he asked Scott whether there was _anything_ he needed to know from the bits Lydia redacted for him, anything of interest, and Scott had breathed a little like he had asthma again and then had said no.)

So. Who Stiles might see in the afterlife. He turns it over in his head during way too many solitary late nights, and you know what? Fuck it. They can show or not show. That shit has always been on them, and it’s never been in his control and he’s long past wanting it to be in his control. At the end of the day, it’s his death, and whatever they do, he’s going to be there with bells and whistles and a whole lot of whupass on.

* * *

The next time Stiles clawed back to consciousness, everybody was in the middle of a war council. Gerard was definitely in the state of California and had issued threats, blah blah blah, big damn showdown. He’d lost a fair number of his hunters on the way, but the other local packs weren’t willing to go any further and he still had enough to make things tricky. And if he got Chris back, the number of lackeys he had was a moot point.

There was some sort of argument going on about that, Chris wanting Allison out of the way and Allison saying hell no and Chris throwing in a whole bunch of ‘let’s emotionally estrange my daughter from her last sorta humane relative to make it easier on her!’ to boot. Stiles was totally happy to leave that to Scott. And Deucalion, who had apparently decided to co-opt the competition. Ugh, whatever, none of that was relevant right now and Stiles didn’t want to know. He had a cordial to mix up.

He also had constant babysitters, which he really very much wanted to toss through walls, but stupid fucking need for stupid fucking werewolf bodies in the field. “Don’t you have a funeral to be arranging?” Stiles muttered, shaking out the last drops from the beaker. “Wolfsbane to plant?”

“Gardening isn’t one of my preferred outlets,” Peter said. He prodded at a string of drying ears, then ducked under it and started messing with Stiles’ pickle jars. “And anyway, Derek’s always been the one to bury what he cares about. It’d be cruel to deny him his urges.”

“Don’t touch.” Stiles put down the beaker and leaned across to slap at Peter’s nosy hands. “Also, dog jokes?”

Peter, predictably, seized Stiles’ wrist. He held it carefully but firmly, and turned to lean back across the table, his other arm going down so he could prop his chin on his fist. “Oh, I’m not joking, my dear,” he said, softly reproving, looking up at Stiles. “I am trying to be a good guest for you, and I doubt that a graveyard brawl would further that goal.”

“Since when did you care about Derek’s feelings? You tried to kill his sister,” Stiles snorted. He tugged his hand free, then stoppered the cordial bottle and set it in its stand.

“He is my nephew, and my last remaining blood relative.” Peter turned his head to track Stiles going to the sink, rinsing off his hands, toweling dry, coming back to the table. “We’ve all tried to kill each other at some point.”

“So, mulligans all around?” Stiles wiped down the table, grimacing as he noticed a new nick in the marble where his knife had slipped off the cutting board. Stupid awkwardly-shaped roots. He tossed the towel back in the sink and then put both hands on the table and pushed forward, till Peter’s face was almost in his chest. “Seriously. You and Laura. Come on, did you hate her? Thought you got skipped over for alpha? She draw dicks on your face when you were in that coma?”

“You’re so immature sometimes, and yet.” Sighing, Peter tilted his head back. He was practically lying on the table at this point, and then he actually was, with a sharp twist at the hips that okay, made Stiles’ mouth dry a little. He scooted forward on his back, then relaxed, his legs draped—not dangling, too weirdly elegant despite the odd position—over the edge, one hand idly running over the wood framing. “I showed her how to sniff out rabbit and surprise quail—and break the necks of men. I had both hands in her gut once, digging out wolfsbane-soaked buckshot, and she used to bring me a bullet from each hunter she killed. Talia didn’t approve of that, didn’t want them to carry more than they needed, so she’d give them to me.”

His hair was just brushing against Stiles’ stomach, and when he stretched his head back, a pine needle fell out of his shirt-collar. Stiles picked it up, twirled it, and then flicked it into the trashcan.

“Of course, she also wanted to drop me in some nursing home at the beginning, before I woke up. Argued that she and Derek could take me and rebuild the pack in hiding, as if the Argents would let that slide. She didn’t want to go to war,” Peter added. He shrugged dismissively. “She didn’t want to look after my comatose body either. I could hear, sometimes, and she was constantly talking Derek into going out. To the point that Talia made sitting with me the equivalent of grounding them.”

“Yeah, being the weak one sucks,” Stiles said. He smiled at Peter’s sudden tension. “So you did want to kill her.”

Peter abruptly turned over. One second he was sprawled on his back, the next he was sitting on the edge of the table, one knee tucked under him for a lunge, his hand knotted up in Stiles’ shirt. “We all wanted to kill each other. We’re wolves, Stiles. We need space. We need earth and air. But we were shut up day after day with each other, day after day in the same _small_ rooms, eating and sleeping in each other’s blood and shit, and then the only time you come out is to kill and maim. It’s all you think about, all you know, and after a while, does it really matter who’s dying?”

“Nah. Well, not if your end-goal is mutual annihilation.” Stiles grinned. He watched Peter’s pupils shrink and then he put his hands up and cupped the werewolf’s jaw. Claws scraped through his shirt, then retracted; Peter couldn’t and, going from his suddenly-blown pupils, didn’t want to stop the deep whiff he took right then. “But let me tell you, that is one shitty recommendation there. Pick me, I’m the one most likely to take you out from within and get myself killed in the process. You’re lucky you and Derek latched onto each other.”

Peter was dead-still, dead-silent. Then, as if he was moving through molasses, he pushed his chin down into Stiles’ cupped fingers. “I think you would manage.” 

“And a stirring endorsement for me,” Stiles added. He moved his hands down a little, so they were mostly on Peter’s throat. “Did Laura just not get it, or did she get it and not want it?”

“I don’t see—” Then Peter paused. He considered Stiles. The tension slowly leached from the flesh under Stiles’ hands; it didn’t go away entirely, but it didn’t feel like Stiles was holding onto something made of steel cable and spite anymore. “She didn’t want it. She didn’t want any of it. She always wanted to leave,” he finally said. “If she’d been with me instead of Derek, I have no doubt that she would have run from you the first chance she had.”

Stiles patted Peter on the cheek, then withdrew his hands. “Well, I never did have luck with gi—”

“Do you not want it, or do you think you don’t deserve it?” Peter asked. “You’re too good at it, you know. No one is that good without caring.”

“You really are asking for it,” Stiles said after a moment. He considered the wall past Peter’s shoulder. “Wanna try and not make me kill you?”

Peter laughed. He leaned forward, then swerved away at the last moment, pushing off the table and going for the door. “Christopher,” he said, stepping past the man. “How lovely your timing is. Once a puppet, always a puppet. Well, Stiles, we’ll have to take up this conversation later. I expect there’ll be time enough once Gerard is dead.”

Chris stood well back, his face stony. He stepped into the room without taking his eyes off Peter’s back, and stayed that way till Peter’s footsteps had completely faded. Then he looked at Stiles. “Can we get this over with?”

“I’d be offended if I didn’t feel exactly the same,” Stiles said. He pulled out the cordial and pushed it across the table. “Drink up, say bye to Allison, and go see Scott. He’ll bring you where we need to go.”

* * *

So back to the plan to kill Gerard. It’s actually really simple. That’s the attraction of blood magic: it’s so straightforward compared to other kinds of magic. Stiles needs to take Gerard apart.

What’s gotten so incredibly, amazingly, mind-bogglingly complicated is how to get Stiles close enough to do it. He’s changed his mind about fifteen gazillion times. And not just minor adjustments either. He’s torn his ideas up from the root and started over from fucking bedrock, man. Why the hell can’t people just—cooperate?

Why the hell does he have to _like_ them?

Why does he actually feel bad about this? He never feels bad, not anymore. What’s there to feel bad about? It’s his life, he can do with it as he pleases. So why won’t anybody just let him?

Well, fuck them. He’s gone too far.

* * *

If Stiles had to dig up Laura Hale, Scott was always and forever his go-to grave-robbing buddy.

It would’ve been a lot more convenient to just keep her bones above-ground, but Derek had wanted to bury her as soon as possible. As it was, they’d had a hell of a time not raising suspicions in making him wait till Stiles was at least up and about again. Which was totally valid. Derek wanted Laura buried on Hale property, Stiles owned the Hale property, he’d have to be the one to adjust the wards for it.

He’d also be the one to pick a spot. Derek had wanted somewhere close to the house, but had grudgingly agreed to further into the woods after Stiles had explained the negative effects of a body so close to where Stiles cooked up a lot of dangerous blood magic shit. That at least saved Stiles the trouble of having to drug Derek and Peter, which seemed like a bad idea with hunters on the way; instead Lydia and Deucalion were giving them the impression that they were finally getting a say in strategic planning back at the house. The other werewolves were on patrol for the first sign of Gerard getting into town.

Allison should have been helping with that, but she’d insisted on going wherever her father went, and Scott, of course, had caved. In the end, Chris hadn’t argued too much either, and he and Allison were having some sort of prolonged please-forgive-me exchange back at the car.

“Should’ve had him come out to help,” Stiles mumbled, throwing up another shovelful of dirt. “Seen his biceps, dude? He could get this done in half the time.”

“We’re _fine_ ,” Scott grunted. The guy would pick the oddest times to get all touchy about his werewolf superiority. He pawed at the dirt, then dug in with both hands and wrapped his claws around something. “Though—shit—don’t remember going this far down. Makes me wonder if Derek came back here after, dumped another load on.”

“Got it?” Stiles maneuvered his shovel till the blade was just under the box Scott had, then levered up.

Whatever the hell it was stuck on finally gave, and Scott lifted it carefully free from the grave. He climbed out and then gave Stiles a hand up, then broke open the box. “Think they’re all here.”

“Great, now get it over here and dump it out.” Stiles scrabbled across the ground for his case. He quickly undid the protective netting and pulled out the wolf pelt inside, bundling up the fur so he had a makeshift bag. “Just tip it right in there.”

Scott hesitated. “You don’t need to…put them in order, or anything?”

For the love of…Stiles glowered at him. “ _No_. Now hurry up.”

Sighing, Scott hefted the box and then turned it. The bones inside clattered and clunked out and dropped into the hide. One of the long leg bones caught on Stiles’ hand and began to fall out; cursing, Scott shifted the box to one hand and caught it just in time. He slipped it into the hide, then gave the box one last shake.

“And what might you two boys be doing, out this late?”

Scott immediately roared and whipped around. He flung the box and then jumped after it, fully shifted. Bare seconds later, he crashed to the ground, snarling and twitching violently, as electric sparks danced over him.

“Hey, Gerard,” Stiles said.

Gerard had three hunters with him. One was holding Allison by her arms, twisting them so far behind her back that she was practically on tip-toes. One had a thick scarlet rope knotted around Chris’ neck, choking him into going on his knees, and one was holding up Gerard.

“You look pretty awful, you know. Maybe you should see a doctor about that?” Stiles said.

Gerard was going to monologue. He had that look to him.

Stiles snapped his fingers. Blood exploded from Chris’ mouth. Chris lashed himself backwards, sending some straight into the face of the man holding him, then fell forward, gurgling and twisting. The hunter on him jerked away, dropping the leash. The hunter holding up Gerard lunged for it, only to be blindsided by Scott, who was up and running again, and they crashed into a nearby tree.

Allison back-kicked into the groin of the man holding her, then flung herself forward to mostly get him over her back. She clawed free and stabbed him with a knife she’d gotten from somewhere, probably him, and then went for her father. Halfway there, she gasped and then started to backpeddle.

“Watch out! Allison!” Scott to the rescue. He dragged her away and Chris’ fingers did _not_ smash in her skull.

The third hunter, which neither Scott nor Allison had nailed, leveled a gun at Scott. After a glance at Gerard, he changed his aim to take in Alllison.

Chris let out a strangled snarl and jerked in place, like he was fighting invisible chains. He snarled again as his father tottered up, curling away and nearly ripping some muscles trying to get his arm to swing at Gerard. It stayed down and Gerard picked up the end of Chris’ leash.

“Did you really believe I wouldn’t be prepared for my family to betray me?” Gerard said. “Or for your little tricks?”

Stiles got to his feet. He tucked the wolf hide under his arm so he could hold out both hands, and took an exaggeratedly slow step towards Gerard. “Well, if I did, I wouldn’t be the one inviting you here, would I?”

“What?” Allison said. She sounded on the verge of tears. “Stiles?”

“ _Stiles_ ,” Scott said. “Oh, shit, Stiles, don’t—”

For an old, cancer-riddled guy, Gerard could move when he wanted to. He couldn’t block Stiles, but he did stab Stiles in the side. Stiles rode the pain and kept his hold on Gerard’s shoulder, and kept kissing the bastard.

A gunshot rang out, and then a man’s scream. Something large and heavy brushed roughly past Stiles’ left leg, dragging on him, and then there was a bunch of snarling and thrashing. Scott and Chris wrestling, Stiles guessed. Allison was shouting.

Gerard twisted whatever the fuck he had in Stiles’ side. More blood poured out. His fucking teeth were all rotten, rocking disgustingly against Stiles’ mouth. Weirdly enough, bothered Stiles more than the pain. It wasn’t that bad anyway, the pain. Already going blurry around the edges, and oddly, warm. Not cold. Warm.

They fell to the ground in lopsided, messy stages, their knees giving out one by one. Something twisted under Stiles’ arm, something furred and muscled, and held him up but nothing was holding onto Gerard except Stiles, and Stiles was getting weak. Their mouths finally jarred apart and Gerard crumpled like a rotten flower, all withered skin and black-spotted eyes. His open, gaping mouth split further at the sides, flesh rolling back from his grimy green-yellow teeth.

Stiles didn’t need the kiss now. He was in deep enough, had all the hooks of the fiery cobwebs holding together Gerard’s insides in his hands. The thing under his arm growled, then shivered and he wanted to let it know it’d only be another couple seconds before he was done. Draining out the alpha power, putting it back where it came from. But he couldn’t move. He was stuck in the webs, too, so thick with them, their tatters in his hands, that he couldn’t wipe himself free.

They snapped, one by one. Chris Argent stumbled around the edges of his perception. The man would never be whole again, never be just his own man, never not feel a phantom grip on his neck. But he’d walk from this, and if he knew what was good for him, he’d figure out a compromise.

The dead alphas. Most of them were so used up that they were just husks, held together by sheer malicious will, and as soon as that was gone, they went to dust. But there was one left, just like Stiles had thought, one that was recent enough, one that could be undiscerning and violent if just ripped out and left ungrounded. He tore it away and forced it into the wolfskin, made it come to grips with itself.

“Hey, Laura,” he slurred. His vision was streaking with black. The body under him was cold and the one propping him up was scorching. “Hey, sorry we’re meeting like this. Your uncle, your bro, dude, I like them but they are so fucking intense. Fucking—go, would you? Just leave, make ‘em leave me ‘lone.”

“Stiles!” Scott shouted. It sounded like it was coming from a long, long way off, like they were calling across mountaintops. “Stiles, hold on!”

Someone closer than that was lifting him up, hands under his chin, staring at him wide-eyed and shocked. So Laura was ridiculously hot too, Stiles noted. Stupid fucking Hales.

And him. That little fucking piece of him that Gerard had stolen. He snapped that and took it back, and then the whole fucking thing unraveled. It was—really kind of pretty, Stiles thought. All reds and flames, and then a big wave of soft soothing black.

* * *

Plan A: Get the Hales, wait for Kate to go after them, wait for the rest of the Argents to go after her.

Plan B: Get the Hales to go after Kate, wait for the rest of the Argents to show up.

Plan C: Get the Hales to donate semen so Stiles can make a wolf poppet to take on some of the backlash from destroying Argent and save him some recovery time. Give them Kate, kill the poppet once it’s come to life, and then pick off the remaining Argents.

Plan D: Get the Hales to follow him around so the Argents think he’s just helping them out. Make the wolf poppet. Kill Kate while she’s distracted with her pedo-sadist fantasies with Derek. Get to Gerard with the wolf poppet while the Hales are dealing with the rest of the Argents.

Plan E: Get the Hales to follow him around to distract the Argents and to keep them from fucking up Scott’s and his plan. Poppet the wolf. Grab Kate, throw Peter a bone so he’ll back off, send a message to Gerard that he can’t ignore and get him to come out of his compound.

Plan F: Get the Hales to follow him around solely because he is a badass ally and is better at predicting where Argents will be. Find Chris, hijack him, and give Gerard a kick in the ass because Stiles is so sick and tired of waiting for him to crawl out of his little fortress already. Add in a wolf poppet wherever.

Plan G: Get the Hales to stop fucking up his plans with _feelings_. 

Plan H: Get the Hales to _not_ follow him because they are fixated dumbasses who wouldn’t know a lost cause if it sank their ship with all hands on deck. Use Chris to distract Gerard from the real plan. Dig up Laura’s bones because a zombie alpha wolf is better than a wolf poppet for giving the other Hales a really good reason to leave town. Tell Scott it’s going down two hours later than it actually is because Scott going to disagree strongly with this whole plan.

Plan I: Seriously? Who the hell thinks he needs a plan I?

* * *

“—can’t reach him, he’s still slipping, if I go any further I’m going to die—”

“Then die, you idiot child. If you’d stopped him like an _actual friend_ —”

“Peter!”

“Fuck you, that’s not going to help, that just means we both go. Look, fuck, I’m trying, okay? But he’s the mage, not me. It’s not equal. He knows how to block me out. He does it all the time, and I can’t _get through_.”

“Can you—can you link us again? I think I can still feel him—I don’t think he broke our link completely. But it’s too faint.”

“Dad?”

“I owe him, Allison.”

“I know, just—”

“Maybe. It might help. Maybe, if I get in your head and you can follow through…it’s just fuck, he’s lost so much blood and I can’t heal him, I’m using everything just holding on. I can’t bring him back if his body’s dead.”

“Then move.”

“Laura?”

“Let him go, Derek. I can’t reach from here.”

* * *

So. Being dead.

Nobody’s there to greet him. Nobody. Big zero. Zip. Zilch. Stood up like a bad coming-of-age flick.

What. The. Hell.

He hates being alone, actually. Even when he’s on his trips, he always ends up seeking out people in libraries, clubs, diners, 24-hour laundromats as much as he can. He keeps forgetting because he gets really annoyed with people, but he does.

And he doesn’t actually want to be here. It just seemed…unavoidable at the time. But now he’s here and it sucks and fuck this _so hard_. Why’d he been running so hard to get here? Scott’s right. He doesn’t have to put up with this anymore. So why is he?

He’s leaving.

* * *

The bed was not his bed. It was a hell of a lot bigger, and covered in still-warm dents of varying sizes, and it had a dresser-cum-headboard thing that allowed Scott to perch on it and look down at Stiles. Scott looked relieved, and reached down. Then he yanked his hands back up and looked completely pissed.

“I cannot fucking believe you,” he hissed.

“Scott—”

“You are my _best_ friend. I’m always going to have your back. But I cannot fucking believe you, Stiles. I cannot fucking believe that you went and got yourself nearly dead because you can’t deal with the fact that other people think you’re awesome. Stiles!” Scott slammed his hands down to either side of him. The wood cracked and dipped so Scott, eyes widening, had to scrabble to keep from being dumped onto Stiles’ head.

In the end, Scott had to abandon the headboard and come sit on the bed. He flopped down by Stiles and crossed his arms over his chest and stared at the wall.

“Did you…kick everybody out so you could yell at me?” Stiles finally said.

Scott grunted. He slid down the headboard a few inches, trying to hold it. Then he gave up and groaned and scooted all the way down so he was lying next to Stiles. “Well, what else good is being the alpha?” he muttered.

Stiles couldn’t help it. He snickered. It kind of hurt—whoa, what the hell happened to his side, oh, _right_ —and he had to wrap his arm around himself for support, but hell, it was worth it. And then his brain caught up. “Wait, but what about Laura? I know she came back—”

“Beta now! You’re welcome!” an unfamiliar female voice called through the wall.

“She’s a beta.” Stiles forced himself to half-sitting; Scott glowered at him, then rolled his eyes and slung his arm around Stiles to help. “Because…she healed me, because you were busy holding my brain together. When I specifically told her to fuck _off_ , because nobody around here has any respect for boundaries whatsoever—”

“Including you,” Scott said. He pulled Stiles a little more towards him, so Stiles could opt for either Scott’s shoulder or Scott’s armpit.

It wasn’t actually that easy of a choice. Shoulder was bony, but even before he was wolfed, Scott had some sweaty, sweaty pits on him. Stiles finally opted for the shoulder.

“Stiles,” Scott said, suddenly weary. “Dude. Look. You can…you can just say _no_ , you know. And if they don’t respect that, we’ll deal with them.”

“Thanks. I feel so safe and secure.”

“And you can—you can leave. If you want.” Scott worked his jaw, looking away. His arm tightened around Stiles and then he realized what he was doing, and almost whacked Stiles’ chin into his chest pulling away. He stopped, so damn pathetic that even Stiles’ shriveled heart ached, and gave himself a shake. Put his shoulders back. “Just because I’m…because this is what I want do, doesn’t mean you have to stay, you know. You can go anywhere, do anything. You just—you better answer a text once in a while.”

“Scott, for fuck’s sake,” Stiles sighed. “I don’t want to leave.”

And he really didn’t. Sure, he got fed up sometimes and he went out of town, but…he didn’t. He didn’t want to leave.

“If you get up and start shit just because you can’t deal, you are officially more embarrassing than me,” Scott said, reading him perfectly, as usual. Scott was grinning, and trying to worm his arm back under Stiles’ head, and goddamn it, he was such a puppy when he was happy. “The worst I ever did was spill that coffee on that guy’s laptop.”

“The worst you ever did was save that girl from the frat-boy and nearly get your brains sucked out when she turned out to be a ghoul,” Stiles said.

Scott winced. Then he turned away and looked at the ceiling. “The worst I ever did was end up falling for the asshole who bit me.”

Stiles…had nothing to say to that.

“Yeah, I know. And I know you threatened him, too, which I’m not…happy with. He’s different now, you know that, and I’m…used to being a werewolf now, I guess. And now I’m waiting for him to just admit it, and he won’t, and sometimes I think I’ll be waiting forever. He’s different but he still was that asshole, and if he doesn’t own up to it, I’m never going to be sure who he is now. But I’m still waiting.” A wry smile touched Scott’s mouth. “Makes dating Allison Argent look smart, huh? And that’s the thing, Stiles. I’m just stupid sometimes, while _you’re_ …are you? You know…do you want to die?”

His voice went all small and thin, like Stiles hadn’t heard since they’d first been taken. And he was straightening himself up again, bracing for it, stupid alpha werewolf good guy that he was. He might not be the brains of the outfit, but damn, did he have the guilt-trip down.

“No,” Stiles eventually said. Not, for once, because he was being an asshole. But because he was really thinking through it first, because Scott deserved that much. “No. Not really. It just got…you know how I get sometimes. All about the plan. I just got caught up in things.”

Scott blew out his breath in relief, which would’ve been comical if he didn’t look so genuinely free of pain all of a sudden. He finally weaseled his arm past Stiles’ head and hugged Stiles. Then he sat back and looked at Stiles. And kept looking.

“Jesus, fine. You’re right. I am a shit werewolf date.” Stiles buried his face in Scott’s neck. “That was what was going on, right?”

“Stiles, you are _literally_ ten thousand times more alpha than I am—”

“I’m human! I just, you know, borrow your wolfy accessories for girls’ night out, but under all that I’m still—”

Scott shoved him (very gently) into the pillows. Then climbed over him and out of the bed. “I am not dealing with this,” Scott said.

When Stiles looked up again, Laura Hale was sitting in front of him. “Hi,” she said.

“You totally disregarded my conscious, intelligent choices—”

“Because they were stupid and even fresh back from the dead I could see that.” Laura Hale was very attractive, even without the gloss of a near-death experience. She also had Derek’s intense stare and Peter’s cheerful gut-you tone, mixed in with a deep, deep fatigue that neither of the other two had. It was pretty devastating. “Your friends guessed you were doing something weird and headed over early, and I’m told that Peter and Derek got to hear your heart stop three times. I might not be alpha anymore, but seeing as I’m the only one who’s not emotionally compromised yet, I’m going to tell you now that you fuck them around like that again and I’ll spread you like pancake batter.”

Stiles blinked. “Didn’t Peter try to gut you twice?”

Laura didn’t exactly flinch, but her eyes looked very blue and very cold for a second. Then she shrugged. “We’re still family. That first time I was trying to gut him right back, and the second time I didn’t only because Gerard Argent had his hand in my chest.”

“I know you all seem to think that gives you exclusivity to emotional warfare, but it really, really doesn’t,” Stiles said. “It just means you fucking suck at gutting.”

For some reason, Laura grinned at him. “Now I see what uncle Peter likes you so much.”

Stiles bit back the retort that sprang to mind. He glanced past Laura, but Scott was long gone and there was no way Stiles was getting out of this bed any time soon. Or triggering any wards. He still had his magic but it felt like a guttering flame and his fingertips went numb every time he tried to reach for it. “Okay, so look, I…probably dicked your uncle and your brother around more than I had to. Well, I definitely did. It’s just the fucking way they _won’t stop trying_. And I don’t even get it, you know? I am an objectively horrible person and I will aggravate the hell out of their trauma, and most of the time I’m not going to be sorry for it.”

“And _that’s_ Derek,” Laura muttered. She rubbed at the side of her face, then frowned and pulled her hand away.

“That goes away in a little bit. It’s just getting used to touch again, it’s the first sense to go.” Then Stiles rolled his eyes. “Don’t look at me like that. No, I don’t die a lot. Or raise people from the dead. I just…happened to be around when other people did it.”

Laura looked at him again, then snorted. She put out her hand, paused when he stiffened, and carefully withdrew it to her lap. “Okay. Listen, Stiles, nobody’s a picnic here, least of all my family and me. But you are a _fantastic_ alpha from what I’ve seen, and it’d be a privilege. That’s all.”

She sat with Stiles for a few minutes, just quiet. It was daytime, Stiles noticed. Cloudy but enough light was getting through to throw shadows on the windowsill. They were in the Hale house, in the big downstairs room reserved for—when Jackson and Boyd finished arguing over it—the home entertainment system. He didn’t remember anybody talking about ordering a mattress this size.

“I was expecting Lydia,” Stiles said.

“She and your beta are sitting on Derek and Peter,” Laura said, amused. “Don’t worry, she told me to tell you that soon as her and Jackson’s turn is up, they’ll be in here to tear you a new asshole.”

A cold dread crept up on Stiles. “Oh, _God_. You like her.”

“She likes _me_ ,” Laura said smugly.

Stiles stared at her. Laura smirked back for a couple seconds, then faded back to sober. Her hand lifted again, then went down on her knee. She took a deep breath and started to get up.

“Hey,” Stiles said. When she stopped, Stiles dragged his hand out from under the blankets. It took—longer than he’d figured on, and he felt flushed and silly-looking when he finally managed it. He pushed it down the bed to near her hip and looked at it. “Hey, I kind of…kind of…this bed is so humongous. I feel like I’m a little pebble in the ocean.”

Laura cocked an eyebrow. “And…you don’t want to be a pebble?”

“Oh, fuck this,” Stiles muttered, and sank into the pillows. He wrestled with his body till he was lying on his good side, all the better to suffocate himself.

The bed dipped, then rocked as Laura swung her legs up to hang over the footboard. She cursed quietly to herself, and then there was the tell-tale swishy click of a phone camera going off.

A couple minutes later, Lydia was forcibly evicting his head from the pillows, hissing about how she’d thought he’d gotten _over_ this phase, did he not have any respect for Egyptian cotton, the drool marks never came all the way out. She sounded a little hoarse, and she curled up under his head even though she had on a silk top and those stained worse.

Jackson slapped Stiles’ hand when Stiles reached for Lydia’s phone, then ducked in and sniffed at Stiles’ side. Sniffed it. For fuck’s sake. Like the bleeding wouldn’t be obvious because Stiles _had nothing on but bandages_ , like some cut-rate mummy. Of course then he slid his fingertips against Stiles’ hip and started pain-draining, and okay, fine, he could test out the pillowability of the gigantic wrap across Stiles’ belly.

Stiles started when the bed dipped again. Everyone went very still and God, could it be more awkward. He’d admittedly fucked things six ways left of bizarre, let alone okay, but he hadn’t made it _awkward_. “Ugh. What are you waiting for, me to regret this? Because you are so, so late for that one.”

“You’re lying, on both counts,” Peter said with abnormal cheer. He nosed up against the back of Stiles’ shoulder, _just_ shy of the throat. Someone growled at him and he sighed, but backed off and settled behind Stiles, knuckles lightly pressed to the dip of Stiles’ back.

“I have it on good authority that your creepy heartbeat trick doesn’t work on me. And when I get better, you and me and the wall are going to have a long talk about personal boundaries and how, my own example aside, you should not dance an Irish jig on them,” Stiles muttered. He shoved his hand down onto Jackson’s head. Okay, it was more of a pat than a shove, but it kept Jackson from doing anything stupid, like leaping over Stiles. “And maybe, Peter, if you’re very, very good, I’ll let you suck your come off my fingers.”

Peter’s hand jerked, and then his face was pressing hard into Stiles’ back. He made a (completely insincere) appeasing noise when Lydia hissed at him, but kept taking deep, long whiffs, his breath ticklish and hot across Stiles’ spine.

“He’s already taking up all the room,” Derek said, scooting in against the backs of Stiles’ legs. His hair prickled at Stiles’ waist, making Stiles squirm, and of course Peter immediately smirked against Stiles’ skin. “Move, Peter.”

“Just lick his neck already, you know he always likes that,” Laura said, taking more photos. “Rolls right over.”

“Darling niece, do remember you’re no longer alpha,” Peter murmured. “And I am eldest, with all the rights and _privileges_ that entails.”

“Yeah, well, I call bullshit.” Stiles grimaced at the silence that fell, then burrowed deeper into Lydia’s side. Fuck, he was really doing this, wasn’t he? He’d had really good reasons why not. Good ones.

He couldn’t quite remember what they were, right this second. If he tried, he knew he could, but…yeah, okay. Maybe he’d try not doing that. Couldn’t be any worse than everything he’d seen and done so far.

“Because I’m _alpha_ ,” Stiles finally finished. He let it sit in the air for a second, then grinned. “It is kind of fun to say that. The hell Scott doesn’t think so, I will never know. Huh. I’m surprised you ever listen to him anyway, Lyds.”

“Did you ever actually think that Scott McCall was my alpha,” Lydia said, voice dripping with disbelief. Then she uncurled enough to reset Stiles’ head, and to pull the blanket up over him where Derek had been—completely unrepentantly working with Peter on that one—edging it off. “Now, as _fascinating_ as all the incest and politics are, I have to insist on…oh, God, what now? If it’s Scott and your daughter, I would hope you’re old enough to deal with it without running to Stiles for every little movie and dinner.”

“Lydia, down.” Stiles extracted his head long enough to take in Chris Argent, magazine in hand, and then put it back. He waved his hand. “You don’t have to be in the same room as me all the time. I know it feels weird, but all accounts are you’ll get used to it with practice.”

“I know.” Chris sounded like he was grinding his teeth. “But they _are_ on a date, and I’d…appreciate it if I had one less thing eating at me right now.”

All three Hales—Laura had swung around and sneaked her foot against Stiles’ shin at some point—were tense and Stiles could taste the suppressed anger coming off them. Fuck, he was going to have to deal with that at some point. He could already hear Scott, _you can’t un-familiar him and how can we trust anyone else with him, Stiles, you and me know exactly how that works_ , and Allison wasn’t going to be hung up with grief and Scott forever either.

But yeah, he knew how it worked. And he’d killed enough Argents for now. “Well, okay, then I guess you can read me something. I never got enough bedtime stories as a child.”

“You follow the gun trade?” Chris said, holding up his magazine. But he was already sitting down, picking a chair well out of immediate lunging distance.

“I dream of hollow points and sniper scopes,” Stiles said.

Chris looked like he’d married dubious, but he snapped open the magazine and actually began reading aloud. Derek huffed in distinct amusement, then grunted when Laura poked him.

“Children, please,” Stiles muttered. He was already halfway to sleep again.

* * *

They have a lot of clean-up after the war. Like, a _ton_. Packs all up and down the West Coast are completely shattered and a bunch of rogues and splinter groups from the east start moving in, trying to plant claims. Beacon Hills gets some brownie points for finally putting an end to the bloodbath, but only till people find out that they’ve got three Hales and two Argents, and then it seems like everyone who lost someone in the fighting comes down for a piece. And that’s just the werewolves.

Allison Argent can technically start up the family business again, if she wants, but she’d be doing it deep in the red, in terms of reputational credit. Pretty much everyone in America is gone and the distant European relations seem to have wiped their hands clean of all of it. Other hunters either think the Argents are psychotic or incompetent, neither of which lends itself to recruiting, or even getting emails and phone calls returned. Anyway, she’s not so interested.

She’s still a killer, just like the rest of them. Lines you can’t uncross and all that. But she says she’s exhausted and she’s spent so long in hiding and then running that she just wants some time to catch her breath. See some movies in an actual theater. Walk down the street in the evening and look at the stars.

Date Scott, yeah, that is going on. Allison and Deucalion are even awkwardly sharing afternoon tea, and various members of Scott’s pack keep coming over in the middle of the night to bitch about sexiling. Stiles is just letting that…go wherever. Scott’s a big boy. He can fuck up if he wants. 

Chris Argent is still going to be living at the Hale house, after all. He is wary as fuck around _everyone_ , not that Stiles blames him (not that Stiles would have him relaxing any time soon, he might’ve come good in the end but all those _other_ times he could’ve helped somebody), but his arms business comes in handy for supplementing Stiles’ out of town jobs. And he’s got enough backbone to argue with Stiles about the right-wrong of some of those jobs, and the deviousness to loop Scott in, and Stiles kind of has to respect him for that. He has a useful niche, and he has enough sense to stay in it.

Well, it’s a big house. They’ve got enough room.

Stiles has to admit, he’s surprised that the Hales are so okay with it. He and Lydia did make a lot of changes, even having part of the foundation uprooted and redone. It’s his house now, for all that he can’t seem to break the habit of calling it the Hale house, and before that it had been in their family for generations. There are photos from the eighteen-hundreds in the local archives that show it virtually unchanged.

But they are fine with it—one of the few things they are. They don’t have outright fights. No, that would be too easy, too obvious. There are a lot of barbed comments about fires and dating and alpha status inheritance, and Peter doesn’t leave Derek alone with Laura and Laura won’t stop talking to Stiles about traveling and Derek keeps catching Stiles for sex right before Peter shows up.

Stiles holes up with Jackson and Lydia for a day. They marathon _Twilight Zone_ and eat Girl School cookies (despite Jackson’s bitching about athlete diets and some lacrosse semifinal), and of all people, it’s Jackson who points out that Stiles still hasn’t bitten anyone. He seems surprised when Stiles promptly starts with him, then moves on to Lydia. Jackson’s a douchebag whose privilege will show forever and always, but he and Lydia were there first, and they’ve always stood by Stiles, even when Stiles didn’t want it.

He and Lydia come out of there with so many hickeys that they look like leopards. Chris comes out for dinner, sees, and turns right back around and has pizza delivered for himself.

Peter is uncharacteristically quiet, and then disappears right afterward for a few days. Derek alternates between bitchy with Jackson and sudden looming out of nowhere to help him out, and Laura is…Laura comes and asks for a talk with Stiles.

It’s a good talk. She’s kind of growing on him. Not as dramatic as either Derek or Peter, and still way too brittle in her bravado for Stiles to want to take out on a job with him, but she’s slowly learning to not look over her shoulder, to fit in her own skin again. She’d been raised as alpha, as heir, but peaceable, diplomatic, and then her mother had jacked things straight up to balls-out scorched-earth slaughter. She’s not good at that and knows she isn’t, for all that none of the Hales have many qualms about killing. She’d done her best to protect her little brother but admitted that Peter was more responsible for keeping him alive. Her mother had been able to control Peter—Laura says ‘control’ with odd inflections—but she’d never be able to, and she didn’t want to be able to. Things were still strange enough after being dead, and anyway Gerard had. She needed to work through it. Being a beta gives her the room, she says slowly.

When they’re done, she comes over and sits by Stiles, and Stiles tips her head by the chin and bites her on the shoulder, just below the join with the neck. Then sends her off to Lydia for concealer and spiked champagne, and a day trip to an outlet mall (conveniently near some hedgewitches he owes a few packages).

Peter returns that night, as charmingly nonchalant as ever. He and Derek and Stiles have dinner—Jackson has some overnight lacrosse bonding thing—and then Stiles jumps him in the kitchen. Lets him play at having it, bloodying Stiles’ mouth with aching kisses, and then twists fingers in his hair and pulls back his head and _bites_. Right under the point of the jaw, where it’ll hurt whenever he turns his head. Peter sags against him, snarl suddenly soft and raspy, almost a purr, and he pushes Peter down to the floor and sits on Peter’s cock. Then he turns around and tells Derek, who’s been standing in the doorway since the first kiss, to get on his knees already.

He bites Derek when they’re both straddling Peter, Derek’s back to his front, Peter’s softening cock still tucked nice and tight into his ass. He’s forcing Derek’s head back over his shoulder, holding it in place with the heel of his hand jammed under Derek’s chin, his other hand digging thin threads of blood out of Derek’s thigh. Derek is taking it _so_ well and Stiles is telling him all about it, telling him when to stroke his cock, when to rub back into Stiles’, and then Stiles sinks his teeth into Derek’s throat. Midpoint, too high to not show unless Derek’s going to be douchier than Jackson and start popping his collars.

Derek comes all over Peter’s face, and Peter’s and Stiles’ fingers slip over Derek’s blood-slicked hips to tangle together, easing him down. Eyes closed, moving languid as sin, Derek licks up Peter’s throat and jaw, finds his mouth. Licks it too, while Peter groans and lets his arms sprawl to the sides, half-lidded eyes gazing at Stiles over Derek’s shoulder. They twist apart, all three of them, and then Stiles props himself up against a cabinet to catch his breath and the other two turn towards him like there’s a magnet pulling them.

Stiles startles. They pause, some of the heat draining from their eyes. Then Stiles shakes himself, gives Derek a tug. Even kindergartners learn to take turns, he says as Derek is scenting the hell out of his neck, rumbling contently, and Peter laughs and makes a show of sitting back on his heels.

Chris comes out of the hall just as they’re stumbling up to bed, probably because they had stopped for a second that ended up being a minute to make out, and he’d figured they’d already left. Stiles can’t see his face well in the dark but Peter can and does, and Peter laughs again, not nicely, before Derek blocks his mouth and hauls him up the stairs. That’s when Chris backs up, a good few seconds later than he should’ve, and Stiles feels the first of many terrible ideas brewing.

But it’s late. He goes up, falls asleep in a warm nest of werewolf bodies (he’s so addicted to this already, he’ll have to start booking bigger hotel rooms on his jobs), and in the morning, when the doorbell rings, he’s still so blurred with it that he doesn’t do more than check the wards for the basics: unarmed, male, not human or were or magic but _different_.

Then he opens the door and his dad is there. So—thin and worn, not like Stiles’ memories at all but he knows it’s his dad, knows it like breathing.

“Hey, Stiles,” his dad says. He smiles, just for a second, and then breathes out like he’s just run up a mountain. “Stiles. I—I’m so _sorry_. I am. I know it’s so late—too late—but I never stopped looking. I just want you to know that.”

He goes on for a little bit, till his faltering voice runs out. Left town after Stiles’ mom died, started believing some of the things Scott’s mom had said enough to want to at least look. Found a guy, did him a favor with an old rap sheet, got a spell to keep him alive where he needed to go. And then this werewolf found him, let him know that Stiles had made his way back, and…

And Stiles had _not thought_ , had not thought about it, had refused, because deep down he was so afraid that he might just lose it completely and he can’t afford that. He can’t. But here is his dad and he’s still not thinking and oh, God, he just throws himself forward and hugs him and hugs him and hugs him. He’s just so goddamn _glad_.

They’re all home.


End file.
